Over the following weeks, things stayed relatively status quo. The flowers left at the flag pole were eventually removed, the tags saved in a desk drawer for next year. The mystery of who left the iris remained for no-pony came forward at breakfast the morning after.
The morning of the first day of autumn found Kathryn taking a crossbow, quiver of arrows and Raea into one of the loaner cars and drove a distance until she found a dollar store. After bucking a garbage can through the glass doors, Kathryn carefully picked her way through the glass -harder to do with four hooves vs two feet! Before anything else, Kathryn used her teeth to grab and drag some floor mats down the aisles and place them on either side of the broken doors to cover the broken glass. "Don't want any other pony to get glass stuck into their hooves," Kathryn said out loud.
Her hooves barely made a sound with the stretched out rubber boots she still wore. Griz had offered to farrier the ponies and all but Kathryn & Annie accepted; Annie was too young and Kathryn was afraid what would happen when she transformed so she stayed with the boots for now. She found a couple more pairs on the shelf and she used her teeth to grip at the cardboard tags to throw them in a wheelie basket she had been gently kicking down the aisles, careful of her earth pony strength.
Down the home supplies aisle, she used a broom in the mouth to knock down an entire hook of packages of clothing pins. Throwing those into the basket, she found the U1's vacuum cleaner's dust bags and snatched every one she could find that fit. "Might as well since I'm already here!" she chuckled to herself.
Raea stayed at the front door's end of the aisle and followed Kathryn when she changed lanes but stayed within sight of the door. She sat at attention, looking back and forth from Kathryn and the front door. Raea had learned a lot more training & signals ever since the dogs became more intelligent. Raea understood when Kathryn gave the command for "Stay but Follow" meant for her to do exactly what she was doing; Stay when Kathryn chose an aisle but Follow when she moved on. It worked for any store; from thrift to clothing to groceries to big places like Lowes or Walmart and even warehouses.
As Kathryn kept looking down the aisles for anything else useful. She nabbed every kid's t-shirt she could find for Annie. All canned fruits and veggies were knocked into the basket with her handy mouth-broom. First aid gauze and medical patches followed quickly, along with hair ties (plain and otherwise), brushes & combs, stand-alone adjustable mirrors, hair-cutting scissors, rain ponchos, crafting scissors, dog & cat toys, a little generic plastic unicorn toy (that had a similar colors to Annie), a little generic plastic fish toy (also same colors to Annie and same size as the unicorn), Birthday Girl/Boy ribbons (3 of each), four trays of the solar stake garden lights and every bottle of water from the long dead refrigerator.
Leaving the overly full basket in the store, Kathryn called for Raea to Fetch a new basket and Come. Within moments, Raea came wheeling a fresh basket down the aisle with her teeth. Kathryn thanked her and gave the same Stay but Follow for the back warehouse area of the store.
Kathryn browsed the stocks, looking for the out-of-season stuff, hoping to find what she really wanted but sadly, came up empty. "Sigh.... I guess we need to find another kind of store, Raea. But I'm not giving up," she announced.
Using the store's own reusable bags, she & Raea transferred everything from the two baskets and, after tying the handles together, Kathryn carefully slipped between them, letting the weight fall on her back; thanks to her earth pony strength, she barely felt it. She had parked the car directly out front of the store's door and had smartly left a plank of wood as a ramp up to the open trunk. Turning around and dropping her rump, the bags easily slid off her fur and landed into the trunk; she used a back hoof to shove them further in and after descending the ramp, the plank followed suit; "Lid" command had Raea jump onto the hood of the car, to the roof and use her front legs to shove the trunk lid closed. The older vehicle had the hinges well oiled by Griz and it closed easily.
Before they left, Kathryn took a sharp steak knife and cut open a bag of dog food & another of cat food and dumped them both outside the store on separate sides of the door. Raea took a couple of mouthfuls when Kathryn gave her a nod. Kathryn then took two really big salad bowls and bit open some of the water bottles so they'd each have water, at least for a little while. (1)
Back before the internet finally crashed and died, Dr Jamie had gone online and somehow managed to save all of the Google Maps of Canada, USA and Mexico, including all of the islands like Bermuda, Cuba & Hawaii. The whole map still worked just like the online version but can be used on any device thanks to an app created by Dr Jamie.
Kathryn now took her stylus in mouth and opened the app on her tablet. Using the search option, she found the warehouse she was looking for but it was at least a three hour drive one-way. Taking down the radio with both front hooves, Kathryn called U1. "Hey guys.... my salvaging is gonna take me farther than I expected. I won't be back until late," she notified. (Dr Jamie had somehow rigged up an answering machine to the radio so if no one answered, it could be recorded. That is what happened in this case.)
The long drive was relatively uneventful as she put on a 3 hour DVD movie into the car's entertainment system and listened to it, after turning off the passenger seat air bag. Raea slept on said seat and Kathryn stopped along the way to add the gas station additives.
Arriving at her destination, Kathryn pulled around to the back and found a big rig parked at the delivery door, which was also still open. She backed the car up along side of the rig and popped the trunk again. Taking bow & quiver in hoof, Kathryn carefully picked her way up a flight of stone steps to the open delivery door. There, she found a few boxes strewn about, some crushed and others torn open, contents spilled out everywhere. In this case, contents were the old Valentine's day themed returns from all the local stores.
This warehouse was the local distribution center for all the Florida-area Dollar Tree stores. She knew that, like back home, when certain seasons ended, the stores would send their leftovers back to the warehouse where they'd be stored or disposed of. Here, she knew she'd be able to find what she wanted. (2)
Sure enough, once she got inside and found a generic layout map, she knew it was all here. Giving Raea the Stay but Follow command, Kathryn made her way to the seasonal sections. They may have all been turned into ponies (and other creatures) but she was going to be down right determined to keep the human holidays alive. Taking an empty box down the first aisle which contained all of the Halloween. She cherry-picked the most obvious and stereotypical pieces like a large, pony-head-sized plastic jack o'lantern (knowing full well that they'd all also carve their own & she made a mental note to get planting them soon) and some hanging black bats, ghosts, a glow-in-the-dark skeleton and some window decal spider webs. She also grabbed a few large bags for trick or treating; she had idea on that score too but she didn't take any of the boxes of candy she found there as they were already expired and stamped for disposal. Just as she was about to leave the aisle, she found a few lengths of autumn leaf garland lengths and she tossed them all into the box.
Taking a fresh box each time, Kathryn tackled the Christmas, Valentines, Easter and July 4th aisles/sections. With a permanent marker in her mouth, she tried to label each box, intending for Sarah or Li to do better later. The next boxes she started were filled with pool toys, more rubber boots, various kid-sized clothes, towels, shower curtains, tarps, ropes, and any other useful items. This warehouse did not contain any of the foods as they came directly from other suppliers to the stores but she did manage to break into some vending machines for chips, pretzels, and other candy bars in one; she only took the water bottles from the other. After using the facilities, Kathryn procured a large wheeling cart to take all of the boxes back to the delivery door.
She was able to slide the boxes from the cart to the edge and then simply drop them into the trunk. Kathryn had been careful and she didn't pick out anything breakable so there was no worries. There was one last thing she wanted but had not found it here.
Along the way back, she came across a Homesense store and found the pony-height fake potted palm tree she had been searching all day for. The only room left in the car was down the middle with the pot in the center of the two front seats.
Knowing she'd get back to U1 really late, she gave them another call to have dinner without her and to leave a plate in the fridge. Jazz informed her that dinner that night was going to be the Fries Mountains; that was when they'd make two or three whole trays of fries and place them on plates with different toppings and share it all. One plate would have plain (and could add your own or keep plain), another had ketchup, another had vegan gravy, and another was poutine with same gravy. "You go ahead and I'll give you a heads up when I'm 30 minutes out, 'kay?" Kathryn asked. "Sure thing. We'll only be making small plates tonight anyway; we'll go the two trays and make you a half when you call," Jazz replied.
Kathryn understood why they were eating the fries again. Many of the bags they had were reaching expiry dates and she refused to eat anything beyond the dates.
On her way back, she found a gardening greenhouse/nursery and acquired the pumpkin seeds they would plant out the next day and get started on.
~*~*~*~
Indeed, not getting home until late, Kathryn still found a plate of fresh fries slathered in ketchup and a big mug of tea waiting for her but land ponies were all in bed & merponies had gone back to BC for the night.
After devouring her plate and mug, the only things she pulled out of the car were the potted plant, one package of wooden clothes pins and a single garland of the autumn leaves. Using her teeth, she pulled the autumn leaves from the vine; ripping the pin's packaging apart was easy but then clothes pinning the autumn leaves to the palm plant proved a little more difficult. It got easier when Li came out to get a bottle of water. Li was too tired to ask too many questions and Kathryn was too tired to answer. As soon as the plant was done (3) to Kathryn's satisfaction, Li headed back to her room and Kathryn practically dragged herself back to her RV.
But there, on the step waiting for her, was another blue iris.
