June 25th, 2015
June 25th, 2015 @ 8:30PM ~Kathryn
Dear Journal,
You are not going to bucking believe what we found today.
But yet again, I'm getting ahead of myself.
This morning, Griz was in much of a better mood to all of us; chipper and open. Every pony commented on her necklace and she told them the same stuff she had told me but without crying. Instead, she was stating facts which led to Sarah & Jazz to hurry over and hug Griz.
Breakfast consisted of more egg meals for some but others went back to the fruit salads, crackers & granola bars.
Afterwards, Griz took all of us out to the convention center, going through the building to reach the animals. “I don’t recognize the chickens so they must have been new generation; the cows I do,” she said as they went in the hall and started greeting them.
Griz opened the outside doors to let the cows out to pasture; the ponies and griffon following them after the fact.
Griz walked around the animals, slowly checking the markings and ear tags of each animal; said tags were not only labeled with numbers but with names. Besides the bull & the calves, three cows were the brown & white variety; the other two were solid brown.
“The three brown & white’s are Dolly, Polly and Molly; the browns are Daisy & Lily. The bull is named Bones; because when he was a calf, there was an accident and he lead to me breaking my arm. The two were left behind were Rose & Holly. The calves were clearly born after the fact,” she said, walking up to each of the calves, who were staying close to their mothers’, Polly & Lily.
“What are we going to name the calves?” Jazz asked. The two mother cows mooed to gain their attention.
Lily dug her cloven hoof at a bigger patch of ground, scrapping up a gather of green leaves that Kathryn recognized right away. “Clover?” she asked. Lily bobbed her head. The others smiled. “That’s a really nice name,” Griz said, taking up her backpack and pulling out a strange object that reminded Kathryn of an industrial stapler.
They watched as Griz wrote on a piece of paper before sliding it into the ear tag she also took from the backpack, and then before any of them could speak, Griz pierced the ear tag to the calf’s left ear.
The calf bawled and Lily soothed the baby as the others started to object, myself included. “What the heck??” “What’s the point of those?” “Why bother?” I had asked.
“Guys, relax. First of all, those tags will identify the cows to the milking machines. Secondly, so we can remember which cow is which and then refer them to their names. Thirdly, it only hurts for a moment... like getting an ear piercing,” Griz said, petting Clover’s head gently. The calf was already recovered from the piercing and it was like it never happened; Clover was unconsciously flicking the pierced ear but took no notice.
Griz turned to Polly’s calf, who was clearly a dark solid male like his sire. Polly shook her head sadly, indicating she had not picked a name. The other ponies were in deep thought. “What about Wally?” Sarah asked. Polly mooed and bowed her head. Griz repeated the ear tag for the baby bull, giving it a good petting when finished.
Griz then gave a signal that all of the adults seemed to recognize as ‘go graze’.
“One thing has been bugging me though, Griz... why so few cows? I’d have expected hundreds of beasts,” Patrick said.
“These were the cows we called the ‘Pets’. We did have hundreds of cows but these were our favorites. The breaking of my arm made Bones one of mine. Sure, the others were milk and meat but these were loyal to us. Even before the Event, they were the intelligent ones; finding them still on the property proves it. Clearly, the rest of the herd must have left a long while ago. But these were the favorites and they somehow knew that that we’d be back,” Griz explained.
{What can I say of the detail? It was very memorable!}
The cows were left to their own devices while Griz & I went out the bottom fence and walked over to see the garden’s progress.
As we walked the path, I had let some of my Earth pony magic leak into the plants, speeding up their growth a little more.
We all met up back out on Haulover beach to keep working on our marina dock. Griz had strapped on a couple of backpacks and went scouting out in the city... see if she could find supplies, food and maybe (if she got lucky) new pony, taking one of the Go Pro's with her.
The building of the dock was boring so I'm just gonna skip to the good part!
We had finished the work a couple of hours before sunset and so started preparing dinner early. The milk vats were already showing fresh milk and so we had collected a bunch of it for use in making lots of buttermilk pancakes. We made Very Berry (strawberry, blue berry, raspberry), banana, chocolate chip, and plain. I had taken one chocolate chip and three plain; didn’t feel adventurous today.
Just as we were finished, Griz came back, both backpacks full of crackers, granola bars, Gatorade, water bottles and a few other pieces of equipment like carpet blades, glass breaking hammers, and mini solar panels no bigger than my hoof.
But the biggest thing she brought back was news; the crazed, excited look on her face made me nervous. She dumped the backpacks along a side wall and her wings flared out with her excitement.
“You guys are not gonna BELIEVE what I found!!” she screeched and proceeded to grab Patrick’s hoof and drag him towards the door. After a quick glance, the rest of quickly followed them outside. Griz & Patrick were already in the air, impatiently waiting for the rest of us.
“Bus?” I asked and Griz nodded.
Over the last week, Jazz had finally mastered driving and been going out, on her own or taking Raea with her. She had found a medium sized- diesel powered school bus, not much different from the one I had used back in Brantford. This one had been reconfigured so it ran only by front hooves, the spinner knob for steering with one hoof and hand control for accelerate & braking. It had been rigged this way so that Sarah & Patrick could drive if needed but everyone had been trained in the use of the system.
“Sarah, take the driver. Jazz, you fly with Griz. Patrick and the rest of us, get in! That includes you, Raea!” I said, giving the dog a head butt towards the bus parked out the side of U1 (the new name of the Wolfe University Center).
The two fliers stayed within visual range of the bus and Sarah drive us south. About an hour later, we had come to another convention center, right on the water front.
And there, chained to the pier was the most unusual boat-thing I had ever seen!
Multiple levels, about the size of our U1 living/lounge and every roof covered in solar panels. The back had a tiny floating dock big enough for four jet skis and a vertical ladder; deck could be extended for additional docking via hydraulics within the back of ship.
Inside had full 4-piece washroom, two bedrooms with single beds, two bedrooms with bunk beds and one master with Queen sized bed. Kitchen is fully stocked with every appliance: double fridge, double baker’s ovens, electric stove top, microwave, dishwasher, wine fridge and coffee maker.
Also had a games room: plasma TV, Wii game console, dart board, pool table, pinball machines, couple of slot machines, poker table and skeet ball alley.
The living room has a freaking electric fireplace and the deepest room had a hatch going into the water! Who seriously does that??
“Can we keep it?” Griz asked, claws clamped together and eyes wide like a kid asking for a new puppy.
The answer was very easy. “Yes.” It had barely left my lips when everyone started laughing and cheering.
“Sarah, you drive; Jazz, you lead the bus back to Campus City with Raea; Patrick, Griz & I are going to figure out how to pilot this thing back. We’ll meet you at the beach.” Sarah finished using her magic to explode the chains holding the thing to the dock. Nods were exchanged and groups were broken off.
Piloting was easier than we expected once we found the manual under the bridge controls.
On the way back, we made plans for the float. We named it the Bermareda Circle Surface Ship (BCSS; 'Surface Ship'). It will be floated directly over BC with eight super cables to anchor the boat in place; they can be disconnected and the ship sailed to and beached at Campus City in event of hurricane.
For now, it’s so big; we had to anchor it out on the bay off the beach.
Tomorrow, we're moving our personal ships to the marina and start preparing them for sinking.
Oh my gosh.... I just realized that it's been only a month since I first woke up! It seriously feels a lot longer LOL :P
