If there's something to say about progress; it's always progressing. Improvements were still continuing to come to the stretched-out, mainly empty Arfajia Valley. The general saying was that such a thing was coming hard and fast. The improvements were certainly coming hard - and all things considered, several of them were coming pretty fast as well.
Building material factory She's A Brick from near Fossil City had planned to erect a subsidiary branch near the Arfalley sawmill, its primary function to produce bricks and street clinkers in a more old-fashioned manner, yet still automated. This branch had been completed and had officially begun production, its first loads of bricks and clinkers delivered to the tiny town of Rolling Hills for the building work and road improvements that were going on there.
The same building materials factory had raised capital to invest into the extending of the small freight railway that stopped in the town of Campion Crossing, and to erect a small freight loading station between their subsidiary branch and the Arfalley sawmill. That part of the railway line had been completed, and the small freight station had been fully built as well. It even had two sidings upon one of which was sitting a row of three decommissioned hopper wagons and two decommissioned stake wagons which had been refurbished and purchased by the sawmill for the transport of woodchips and bales, full pallets or logs. A train was already in operation on the extended freight line, again by investment of the building materials plant, delivering raw materials to the branch plant and returning with an amount of the building materials produced there. It looked incredibly old-fashioned, as the consist of five stake wagons was pulled by a steam locomotive, but the locomotive was in fact a reproduction of a 1912 Italian FS Class 625, built in 2006 and running on specially treated wood and wood pellets rather than coal.
Inspired by the initiative, the Arfajia Wildflour flour mill and the Slickers oil mill had raised a joint capital as well to extend the freight rail line even further, all the way up to a second small freight loading station that was to be built in an area between the two factories. In conjunction with that, the Arfafield-based freight company Outfield Freight had raised capital to connect their terminus freight station in Arfafield to the newly planned freight station between the flour and oil mills, utilising still-present sections of long-abandoned railway running along the foothills of the Dino Mountain range. Teams of crew were constantly seen moving back and forth along the distant mountains to check, assess, and either refurbish or replace the sections of railway, and the work was moving along at a fair pace, aided by the fact most of the infrastructure was already in place.
To give all the crew members a more local place to stay and a base to work from, a long-abandoned boarding house situated a couple dozen miles out along the main road leading west to the more populated areas was being refurbished and put back into service as well. That work had been executed with a certain degree of urgency, to have it ready by the time the crews arrived in the stretched-out valley. With the work successful, the boarding house also served as a base of operations for crews from two tree nurseries who joined together to revive a small sawmill situated between two groves of exotic hardwood trees. That work progressed at a fairly rapid pace as well, the buildings of the sawmill already repaired and in some cases rebuilt, and even the first extension of the railway line had come into play to transport components of heavy sawing machinery to the valley, which were used to repair and replace the old sawmill's equipment.
The stretched-out, near-empty valley was certainly undergoing a lasting update.
All the work that was being done, all the progress and improvements that were being made, also sparked further ideas and plans. Most notably, with their base of operations at the Arfalley sawmill, the crew of three scientists from the University for Forestry and Agriculture from the city of Enfanor, had expressed their desire to remain in the valley for a much longer time, as their initial year-long data gathering experiment adjacent Butterfly Farm was coming to an end. One of the Butterfly Farm farmers, the tall, freckled human woman Sasha, had already provided them with an idea to extend their stay for a further two years by suggesting they speak with the farmers of the newly built joint Smoky Hills Farm and set up two similar year-long experiments with the newly developed super fast-growing Bambizia Fir trees there. A visit to Smoky Hills Farm by the Belgian Hare rabbit woman biologist, Dr. Janni Baston, had secured those experiments and a subsequent 22-month extended stay for them in the Arfajia Valley, effective immediately after the finishing of the experiment at Butterfly Farm and the presenting of their findings at the university at the start of January.
But the three biologists had pepper up their patooties. They had a desire to stay in the valley even longer than two years, possibly indefinitely. And Sasha had hinted she might have an idea to make that a reality. It had caused no end of distraction with the crew of biologists, especially the blue-grey tabby cat woman Dr. Barbara Westing, who had been the first to voice the wish to remain in the valley.
However, Sasha's idea was not yet concrete. She needed time to think about it, calmly, add or remove thoughts, think of and assess possibilities and either implement or reject them. There was plenty of time to do a lot of thinking, with just the routine chores needing taking care of daily, such as feeding the chickens, chicks, rabbits and Choco the goat, gathering the eggs from the chicken coop and pleasuring and milking Choco, and filtering, chilling and processing the milk. Silage bales had already been sold to the BGA plant, the grass in fields 3, 6 and 7, as well as the stretches of grassland around the small forest on the hill in the rectangle to the left of Butterfly Farm, had been cut, baled and wrapped and was slowly growing back to length while the November batch of silage bales was stacked under its shelter to ferment. Winter canola had been planted in fields 1, 2, 4, 5a, 5b and 8 and needed no tending to other than a session of weeding with the old weeder, and an application of fertiliser in the second week of November - both of which had been done, and had taken them only three days each.
Doing the long, slow passes over the fields to weed and fertilise gave Sasha even more calm time to think and improve her initial plan. The only distraction came every day at lunchtime, when the three biologists joined the lanky human woman and the fluffy purple and white vixen-taur Buddleia for lunch and an hour of relaxed cuddling afterwards. Because every day during the cuddle time after lunch, the biologists, and in particular Dr. Barbara Westing and the dark-coloured ocelot woman Dr. Sandy Nightz, kept on continuously probing Sasha for more information on her plan. Sometimes even very literally, using fingers and toes to poke and prod against the human woman's freckled skin over and over and over in a playful but incessant manner.
Eventually, Sasha gave in. After more than a week, she'd had enough time to finalise her plan, review it from several different angles, consider all the pros and cons, and come up with solutions. Their usual Friday run into Rolling Hills to collect possible mail, revenue from their products sold in the general store and to do their weekly groceries was extended with a quick visit to the Co-op where Sasha procured a couple of copies of the land maps of the valley, and the confirmation from the light tan Katanga lion Ag agent Daniel that she was allowed to sell land in their possession to third parties.
Contrary to popular belief, Friday the thirteenth was shaping up to become a lucky day for the three biologists. They did not visit the farm for lunch, as Buddleia and Sasha were still in Rolling Hills at that time. They had however been invited for dinner.
Already, during dinner, more questions were asked on whether or not Sasha could give them any more information on the plan she had hinted at. During the relaxed cuddle time after dinner, the questioning became more intense, with the manner of questioning by the two feline biologists in particular sounding more like children whining for attention.
"Alright, alright," Sasha eventually grinned after drawing out the tension for over an hour. "I do believe your torture has lasted long enough by now. So, yes, I have formulated a plan for you three goofballs, I have looked at it from every angle I could think of, and I do think it's a solid plan that can be put into motion without too much problems."
"You can keep us here?" the blue-grey tabby cat woman Dr. Barbara Westing said with a hopeful sparkle in her eyes. "Oh, do tell us how, Sasha, tell us tell us tell us!"
"You're becoming even crazier than your crazy colleague here," Sasha sniggered, motioning her head at the dark-coloured ocelot woman Dr. Sandy Nightz. "And here I was thinking you were a sensible, mature woman with a degree, a doctorate even, but look at you! A kid at Christmastime couldn't be whinier than you are at the moment, haha!"
Buddleia cheerfully pushed Sasha with one of her feral forepaws.
"You not be mean tease now, Sasha, yee hee! You tease them so much already!"
"Fine fine, I did say I thought your torture has lasted long enough by now, so I'll put a stop to it," Sasha grinned again, scrambling to her feet. "Get up, everyone, and walk with me if you will."
With excited cheers, the three biologists rose to their feet as well, as did Buddleia. The fluffy vulpine taur also shielded Sasha a bit from the enthusiasm of the biologists by wrapping an arm around Sasha's shoulders as the freckled human woman started leading the way down the dirt path between fields 2 and 3 after taking a rolled-up paper from the table her laptop was sitting on. By the Mercedes-Benz mobile lab parked on the extended Waving Grain Road curving around the back of fields 5a and 5b, she unrolled the paper on the collapsible table that was sitting outside of the vehicle and pointed at it.
"Now, have a look at this," she started explaining while running a fingertip over the lines on the paper. "This is a map of this valley, as used by the Arfajia Province council. As you can see, there is this grid of rectangles all over the valley, dividing the land into plots of eight hundred fifty by one thousand meters. Right here," she tapped her finger on the map, "you can see our farm is sitting in one of those rectangles; these shapes represent the buildings, these hatch-marked blobs represent the patches of trees. Down here, the property line runs right where the fence alongside Butterfly Road is, and up here, you can see the other property line runs right through the middle of that long narrow forest some way behind Waving Grain Road running along the back of our farm. The property line on the left here is right where that fence over there is, the line on the other side is denoted by the little dirt track running alongside our field eight. We own this entire rectangle, plus that weird stretched-out triangle of land on the right that's between our right-side property line, the right fork of Waving Grain Road and Butterfly Road, and over here on the left side, the roads made a really weird stretched-out X-shape. We have rerouted those roads into the layout you can see here now, and two small spots of land were given to us by the Ag agent Dan as he owned them, plus we have since purchased not only the land that was freed up when we rerouted the roads, but this entire eight-fifty by a thousand meter rectangle we're standing in right this very moment."
"So we're actually camping on your land with our lab?" the Belgian Hare rabbit woman Dr. Janni Baston smiled with a light chortle. "I thought that by keeping the lab parked on the road, we were just outside of your property border."
"When you first got here, that was actually the case," Sasha nodded. "We've only purchased the rest of this entire rectangle rather recently. Now..." She started pointing at the map again. "As you can see here by these height lines, this rectangle contains a somewhat stretched-out and curving hill, and this blob of hatch markings represents that forest over there that covers most of that hill. This is an updated map, which shows that the forest is in fact named Silvercreek Clan Forest, and it's protected. That means that not even Leia nor myself are allowed to cut down any trees in that forest, despite the fact we actually own it."
"Is there any significance to that small forest that caused it to gain a protected status?" Janni asked, tilting her head a bit.
"Not as far as the Arfajia Province is concerned," Sasha smiled. "The protective status as well as the name were in fact requested by me, because that little forest designates the area where the Silvercreek clan of foxtaurs, Leia's forebears, settled down in this valley four hundred years ago and set up a farm. So I wanted to honour that in some way, and the best way I could think of was to name that small forest and have it officially placed into protection."
"Aww, that's so sweet though!" Sandy crooned.
"It is!" Barbara agreed. "And it's such a nice little forest, a whole small ecosystem in itself with all the different plants and flowers and critters that grow and thrive in there."
"Yes, we noticed that you've done a good bit of exploring in there," Sasha sniggered. "Now, walk with me again if you will."
She walked over to the corner of the fences where Butterfly Road connected to Sawmill Road and pointed out a set of four thin wood posts painted luminous orange; three in a row next to each other and the fourth one flanking the middle of those three posts. Walking further to the left, she pointed out several more of the luminous orange posts between the tall grass alongside a part of Cherry Blossom Road, and a second set of four in the same orientation several hundred meters furtheron.
"These posts denote the borders of all the rectangles this land is divided into," she explained. "So these here denote our extended property line, and this set of four here is the corner of the rectangle, so our property line runs from here a thousand meters that way, and then eight hundred fifty meters back to the right towards that long narrow forest behind our farm. All the land between that is ours, including that entire small forest on the hill here, and the hill itself; you can see how it curves and tapers out and down towards the left, and it is in fact fully inside the rectangle of land that we bought to add to our farmgrounds."
"That's interesting to know, but in what way is that relevant to the plan you thought of to allow us to relocate here?" Janni asked with a chortle.
"In every way," Sasha grinned, folding her right arm around the Belgian Hare rabbit woman's shoulders and motioning with her left hand. "Because look at all that. You can see we have cut the grass in all the land that is not covered by that small forest, and it is our aim to turn some of this land into arable fields we can grow crops on. But what is the problem with that?" She looked at the two feline women as well. "Anyone?"
"Heck, I have no clue," Sandy chortled.
"Yeah, as far as I can tell, there are no problems," Barbara nodded. "It's your land, you can do with it as you please, so long as you don't do any damage to that protected little forest, right?"
"Does it have to do with the geography?" Janni ventured a guess.
"You are both correct in a way," Sasha nodded with a chortle. "It is our land, so we can do with it as we please, so long as we don't damage the forest, and so long as it's within agricultural regulations. And there is also a small problem with the geography. To be specific; the problem is that hill. We can plant any crop we'd like on that hill, the plants don't give a damn about the slope, but the problem is that we also have to harvest the crop when it's ripe, and our combines as well as our baler can't handle those slopes very well. It's going to be a major pain in the ass for us to run a combine over the slopes of that hill, and we'd lose an amount of the harvest."
"Ohh, okay, that makes sense!" Barbara nodded again. "Yeah, that's not something we would have thought of, because that's very farm-oriented and that's not within our field of expertise."
"Right," Sasha chortled, folding her left arm around Barbara's shoulders and playfully pulling the short-coupled tabby cat woman against her left side. "So that got me thinking. We can't really use that sloping, hilly part of this rectangle of land to farm any crops on. You ladies want to stay in this valley for as long as possible, even though you all three have very prestigious jobs with an acclaimed university. So here's an idea. Let's just say, what if I was to sell you the several acres of land that's rising up into that hill? I'm allowed to do that, I verified that with the Co-op via which we purchased this entire tract of land. And what if I put you in touch with ABC, the Agric Building Company, who has in their portfolio several structures that are delivered as a flat-pack of pre-constructed panels which can be assembled by either them or the buyer into a full-fledged building. I have seen their portfolio, and apart from your regular sheds and barns and shelters and such, they also have several basic housing units available. You could get one of those, erect it on the top of that hill as the top is relatively flat, right by the border of that little forest, and run a driveway from it all the way to here where we're standing now so it connects to Cherry Blossom Road. We would need to run a path in that place anyway to outline the new crop fields we may plow up here, so it may as well be a driveway up to a basic house. Utilities run under Cherry Blossom Road and can easily be run under the new driveway to connect the house to plumbing and electricity. And that would give you a good number of acres of land across the top and the sides of that hill to plant a whole grove of your super fast-growing trees." She held up a hand to quiet down the excited remarks that started spilling from two of the three biologists. "You can monitor them and collect data from them for a year, and you can even stay connected to your university job by setting it up as a test bed to see how the trees will react and adjust to being planted and cut down again and again and again, in the very same tract of land every time, over the course of ten, fifteen, twenty years or even longer. You would basically still be working for the university as a team that way, retaining your income and everything, and at the same time you can operate a sort of tree nursery right here by our farm where you can do lots more testing and data acquisition on the trees, and you could even breed batches of new saplings of them to provide us, the two families of Smoky Hills Farm, and I'm pretty sure the sawmill would be very interested as well in setting up a grove of those trees to harvest every year for woodchips, so you would get additional income from selling all the trees you grow every year to be chipped, and the saplings." She grinned a wide and cheerful grin while looking at the three biologists. "How's that sound as an idea?"
"That's so perfect!" Barbara squealed happily. "We can live here and still keep our jobs! Oh Sasha, you're amazing!"
"Yeah! That's so great! I'm so impressed you thought of all that, Sasha!" Sandy cheered joyfully. "I wanna stay here as much as Barb does, and you just gave us the perfect opportunity to do that! I'm so happy!"
"It is, in every sense of the word, perfect," Janni agreed with a smile. "The university would fully back that plan as well, because we have no data at all yet on how these trees keep themselves over a longer period of time, nor do we have any contacts yet with nurseries who could grow the saplings for commercial use. With this plan of us setting up a nursery of sorts, we have both those aspects covered, and we'll be able to get financial backing for both the land purchase and the erecting of a building to house us and our lab."
"And you're even further in luck, because Dan managed to arrange that we can buy the eight rectangles of land surrounding the one our farm sits in for the land price of nineteen eighteen," Sasha chortled with another grin. "He informed me the price for land out here is between six and nine grand per acre, but the price in nineteen eighteen was three hundred sixty two dollars per acre. So that means we have bought all this land here for a bit over three and a half hundred per acre, and I can sell you the acres covered by that hill for four hundred per acre, because of course I do want to make a little bit of profit, haha."
"That is amazingly generous," Janni smiled. "Is there any specific reason for keeping to the land price of that specific year?"
"In a way, yes," Sasha nodded. "See, back after the first world war ended in nineteen eighteen, Leia's great-grandparents sold off the tract of land between the right property border and that patch of trees behind our silo and shed and the pond, most likely because they were short on money after the war. When we discussed that at the Co-op, Dan suggested he might be able to finagle the opportunity for us to buy it back at the price that was paid for it back in that year. And apparently, because he has a lady-love with a foot in the door of the province council, he even managed to finagle the same price for the eight rectangles of land surrounding the one our farm sits in. Which in turn allows me to sell you several acres of land in one of those rectangles for a good five percent of the actual land price as well."
Janni nodded as well, running a paw over her narrow muzzle for a moment.
"And there would be no problems with us setting up a tree nursery on that land? Because that's not agriculture, that's forestry."
"Agriculture and forestry are close enough to fall under the same umbrella of land designation," Sasha smiled. "I asked about that at the Co-op as well. So you're safe in that regard; the land out here has an agricultural designation, and forestry is also allowed. You only need permits and such, and a costly designation change, if you were to operate a different commercial enterprise on this land, such as industrial, hospitality or residential."
"That's good," Janni nodded with a smile of her own. "And we wouldn't get into any trouble operating a forestry-based enterprise right next to a protected forest?"
"No, because you won't be touching that forest," Sasha smiled. "That's why I suggested you build the flat-pack house right by the border of the forest, because that way your area of operation will..." She lifted both arms and swung them out towards the left, "...be thattaway, away from the forest, with the building as the divider between your work area and the protected forest."
The Belgian Hare rabbit woman let go a chortle.
"You really did think of everything, didn't you?"
"I thought of as many things as I could think of," Sasha said with a laugh. "I'm sure there's still plenty of things I didn't cover, because I don't have a whole lot of experience with your line of work, and of course I also can't think of every last thing. But the most important things that I could think of, I thought of, haha."
"That's fair," Janni chortled. "And we can't even begin to express our gratitude for all the things you did think of, Sasha. I mean, look at how happy and giddy you made my otherwise very capable and scientific colleagues!"
They both turned a bit to look at Sandy and Barbara. Both feline women were happily and excitedly chattering to each other about the prospect of living in the valley and all the possibilities, wiggling and bustling so much in their joy that Buddleia had folded her arms around both of them in a gigantic embrace to hold them close and keep them from bouncing all over the place. Turning back to each other, Sasha and Janni cheerily shook their heads.
"It looks like it's up to you and me to go through all the details of this plan, Sasha, as it seems like my colleagues are happied beyond the capacity for rational thought," Janni chortled.
"Yeah, what have I done, now we'll have those overjoyed silly goofballs right next to our farm for decades," Sasha sniggered. "That's gonna leave a long-lasting effect I'm sure, both on our productivity and our sanity, haha. But you still seem rational and sensible, so I'm sure we can work out all the details that will be coming up in the execution of this plan. And there will be plenty of sizeable details, such as the procuring and building of the housing structure, the teeing off and connecting of the utilities which no doubt will have to be done by the province, as well as smaller things, like, you'll be needing at least one and possibly more regular passenger cars to travel to town for groceries and such for starters."
"Not to say anything about equipment for running a tree nursery, lab equipment and furnishing for the house," Janni chortled. "But we'll get to that when we get to that. After all, come the end of this year, we will first still have to return to Enfanor to present our data to the university, discuss all the details of the project we have done here by your farm, discuss the details of the projects by Smoky Hills Farm, and present the proposition of this idea you devised for us. That's going to take weeks, I think it may well be March or April before we'll even have the chance to return here and start the first experiment at Smoky Hills Farm."
"Indeed, though I have in fact also thought about that for a moment or two," Sasha chortled. "Because if your team specifically is going to run that decades-long experiment with the nursery here on a part of our land, at least one of you will have to oversee the purchasing and building of the house, for one, even if it will be two years before you can actually use it and set up everything here. So it would possibly be a good option if your university dispatches a second team to keep an eye on the trees planted at Smoky Hills Farm together with your team, leaving one of you free to get the outline of the nursery started."
"Again, that is very cleverly thought of," Janni smiled.
"Out of necessity, actually," Sasha pointed out with a smile. "Because it affects our productivity, since it's on our land. We need at least the outline of where the nursery will be, so we can plan out the size and shape of the fields we can plow into this area." She let go a laugh. "You may have two years to do other stuff with financial backing from your university, but we will need to do actual farming here and generate income for our company from that land during those two years, you know."
"Of course!" Janni chortled. "But I'm sure we will get all of that figured out, Sasha."
"Well well, what a joyous pool of merriment we have found here!" a new voice sounded.
Looking around again, Sasha and Janni noticed that while they were talking with each other, and Sandy and Barbara were happily chattering to each other in Buddleia's embrace, the green and dark grey Nissan D21 Navara from Cherry Blossom Farm had pulled up to where they were standing. In it were Butterfly Farm's white and orange Dutch Spaniel neighbours, Marian behind the wheel and her daughter Margot having gotten out on the passenger side. It was Margot who had spoken up, looking at the happily chattering feline women hugged by Buddleia, and Sasha and Janni animatedly talking to each other.
"Isn't that a nice surprise!" Sasha smiled, stepping over to the two-tone pickup truck. "Good evening, darlings! To what do we earn the pleasure of your visit?"
"Good evening, Sasha," Marian smiled after getting out of the pickup truck and shaking out her fluffy fur. "We decided to drop by and, ah, share our bounty, as we have finally processed the last of our cherries."
She crooned a content sound as Sasha hugged her and smooched at one of her long, floppy dangling ears, and Margot grinned cheerfully while ducking through one of the rear doors of the pickup to take a big box from the backseat.
"Yup! There won't be any fresh ones made until after next harvest, so make'em last, honey!" she chuckled, handing the box to Sasha.
Opening the box, Sasha smiled at the contents. In the box were several jars of cherry jam, a few bottles of cherry wine, several home-baked donuts filled with cherry jam, a number of cherry muffins and a small cherry pie.
"Well, that is so sweet of you, darlings," she smiled, letting go a short laugh. "Cherry sweet, as a matter of fact. And perfect timing too, because these giddy goofballs here have something to celebrate, haha!"
"Yeah, what's with all the bubbly excitement going on?" Margot grinned.
"We get to live here!" Barbara crooned with a purr.
"Yeah! Sasha's gonna let us set up shop here!" Sandy said with almost a cheer.
"Oh! That's, ah, big news, and very pleasant," Marian smiled.
"Big news indeed!" Margot nodded with a playful grin. "I'd say, why don't we go sit ourselves down and you can tell us all about it, huh?"
"An excellent idea, as those two frisky felines seriously need to calm down some," Sasha chortled. "Marian, is this wine good to drink yet?"
"It's, ah, from our first batch, so I would let it age for a few more months at least," Marian smiled. "It's been ageing for four months so far, and because it's such a deep and dark wine, you should probably let it age for at least eight more months."
"Alright, I'll put it with our own wines then, and for tonight we'll just enrich Leia's herbal tea with a splash of elderberry juice," Sasha nodded with a smile. "Thank you so much for all the treats, darling, we really appreciate it very much."
"It's the least we can do, after all the treats and help and advice you have given us already," Marian smiled.
"She's very good at giving awesome help with awesome ideas and advice, isn't she?" Janni chortled.
"Yeah yeah yeah, I rock and all that," Sasha sniggered, shaking her head. "Quit it with the syrup-smearing already and just come back to the house with us so we can have a sit-down, calm down a bit and enjoy some treats, alright?"
That idea was welcomed with more playful cheers. Marian and Margot got back into the Nissan pickup truck to drive it all the way over to the small old farmhouse, while Buddleia let go of Sandy and Barbara, but still kept her arms folded around the shoulders of both feline ladies, and Sasha did the same to Janni while walking back to the farmhouse. Extra chairs and pillows were set out in the soft grass by the rabbit runs, Buddleia brewed a pot of her herbal tea, Sasha cubed one of their new small butterfly-shaped goat cheeses flavoured with the powdered fairy ring mushrooms, and soon all of them were sitting together in the cool, clear evening air to enjoy one another's company and talk about the big plan Sasha had laid out for the three biologists.
The valley had certainly not seen the last of those biologists yet!
