Perils of a Merpony: A Ponies after People Tale

by kitten_girl86

June 24th, 2015

Author's Note:

Gonna be another long one so get ready!

Just a little warning, I'm adding the tag of [Sad] to just this chapter as we learn a little bit more about Griz.

Kathryn woke the next morning feeling completely back to herself, having remembered everything clearly from when she was sick. Nothing was of concern to her so she let it go.

Griz had something to bring up to all of them so she figured the sooner, the better.

Entering the main University building, Kathryn found Jazz & Dr Jamie already awake and preparing breakfast. Dr Jamie was at the electric stove top making oatmeal while Jazz was at the cutting table making a fruit salad.

Kathryn greeted the two ponies with a nod as she peered over the lip of the pot Dr Jamie was using. “I made plenty if you’d like some, Kathryn,” he said. “That’d be nice, thanks Doc,” she said with a nod.

Kathryn then walked over to the cork board map, absentmindedly looking it over. A smile came to her lips as her eyes wandered over the spot she had circled and labeled Bermareda Circle. Suddenly, she felt eager to get back out and finish the marina so they could get started on the boats.

Kathryn had some vague ideas about how she’d decorate her own boat but then realized they’d have to replace the mattresses somehow.

Griz came walking in from the hall that led to the indoor pool, sopping wet and looking bedraggled, followed by a pair of giggling merponies.

“Oh you guys,” Kathryn said as she rolled her eyes when Sarah & Patrick let out gut-busting laughter.

Griz grabbed a towel from a pile set on a table nearby (for what Sarah called “water emergencies”) and started wiping her down and then preening to get her feathers back into place.

Dr Jamie saw her in the process of pulling out a broken secondary and he winced. “I am so glad that I was not made into a griffon or pegasus or anything with feather wings... no offence,” he said. Those with wings merely shrugged. “To each their own, Doc,” said Jazz.

They all took their usual seats around the table: Kathryn took the head, Sarah & Patrick (with chairs turned sideways so they could rest their forelegs on pillows) on her left, Jazz & Dr Jamie on her right and Griz at the foot of table with her back to the kitchenette.

Dr Jamie offered his pot of oatmeal to the others and most agreed. Jazz dove into her fruit salad while Patrick got up and started working at the stove top.

Sarah produced a bunch of elastics made with tiny loops from a drawer; she used her magic to place these on the dominate hooves of each Kathryn, Dr Jamie and Jazz, leaving one on Patrick’s spot. She demonstrated their use using Kathryn’s without magic, showing how they were to use them; holding the utensil in between her teeth, sliding it in and the elastic fitting itself to the former handle. The others were impressed and their faces lit up. Griz nodded with a quiet smile as she took up her own spoon in her talons. Sarah blushed as she used her magic to lift her own spoon.

“So Griz.... you wanted to talk to us about something?” Kathryn finally broached as they dug in.

Griz took a few bites of the oatmeal, gathering her thoughts and swallowing.

“We need some farm animals.”

The only sound that permeated the silence was the sizzle of the pan on the stove and Raea’s panting as she lay on the floor next to Kathryn, chewing on a bone.

“Why?” asked Sarah, being the first to come to their senses.

“We’re gonna need more milk if you guys want to keep having cereal other than dry... and of course...” Griz jerked her thumb-talon behind her to the stove top where Patrick was just finishing his diced tomato omelette.

Kathryn watched as the last of their good eggs went into Patrick’s breakfast. “Oh, I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to take the last,” Patrick said, worriedly.

Jazz waved a hoof. “They’d have gone to waste otherwise, no worries,” she said, returning to her salad.

“I’d have to agree with Griz on this... now that we have the orchard & farm field, we should be looking into the next step.” Kathryn muddled over the idea as she scooped more of her cinnamon-dusted oatmeal.

“This means we’d have to put the marina on hold... at least for a day or two,” Griz pointed out. Kathryn nodded thoughtfully. “I figured you’d get to that eventually. But this is more important,” Kathryn said; the others were surprised but in agreement.

“Sarah, Patrick and Jazz will stay here and convert the large convention room connected to the delivery doors in the Kovens Conference Center for the indoor “barn”. Kathryn, Doc & I will take the pickup out and find us a farm; Kathy will drive the cows’ transport back, I’ll drive the pickup with the milking equipment. Doc will help with the dismantling & loading.” They all calmly nodded to Griz's plan and Dr Jamie started collecting the dirty dishes.

Kathryn walked with Sarah & Jazz to plan out the fencing from the delivery bay to the huge nearby grass field, south of the orchard and west of the farm field.

There was a huge flatbed trailer of construction fencing that they could use to create a fenced path from the bay, turn right, straight on the road and then left as soon as the guardrail ended. The construction fence would continue next to the road, follow the turns to include the irrigation pond and along Main Rd; they’d run out of fence by then so they’d continue with the huge rolls of heavy duty orange diamond mesh fencing and the big piles of t-bars that they’d hammer into the ground.

Heading back and into the building, they quickly realized they’d have to tear out a wall to gain access to the convention hall but thankfully it was not cement or concrete; just the normal steel studs & drywall of non-load-bearing walls. Kathryn left Patrick to deal with the wall; she knew he’d come up with a clever fix for the wall.

She trotted back to the University building to meet up with Griz & Dr Jamie; Griz was perched in the back, Dr Jamie in the passenger side and her flatbed was already hooked up. Not that she didn’t trust them bit she always checked everything herself. Neither Griz nor Dr Jamie took any offence as Kathryn jumped into the driver’s seat and they drove off, waving to Jazz who was hovering in the air. Jazz waved back as they pulled out of the campus and drove out of town.

Kathryn picked a random highway on the GPS and headed west.

After about two hours, they found themselves in a town called Immokalee. It was completely deserted like everywhere else but this was certainly farming country.

A bit of back road driving, Griz pointed out a dairy farm with animals still on the property. As they pulled in, Kathryn spotted a transport trailer still attached to a bigger pickup than the one she drove and the cows showed very little interest in their appearance.

Griz took off from the back even before the truck stopped completely and made a bee-line for a chicken coop not far from the farm house. There, she found 3 hens and one rooster still alive cowering inside the hen house; 2 dead chickens were laid at the far fence within the pen and evidence showed of marauders of the nature kind. Griz noticed that one of the dead chickens was still relatively warm which meant it had only just happened. She swept her gaze to the two ponies who where slowly approaching the cow herd. Griz picked up the dead chicken by its feet and quickly took it to a red shack nearby, recognizing it as use for butchering. The other chicken, she tossed out into the side yard for the marauders to do with as they wished if they came back.

Meanwhile, Kathryn & Dr Jamie calmly and carefully approached the cow herd. Sarah had insisted that Raea went with Kathryn and now she stayed back at her owner’s command. Kathryn did not want to spook the cows with the presence of a dog; pets gone feral had probably already been through here.

But like with Raea, the cows showed a sense of intelligence they had not before the Event and they too started approaching the white and dark blue pony-like-creatures.

Dr Jamie wasn’t sure what they were going to do but Kathryn did. “We are former humans; we were transformed to be like this. We want to take you elsewhere to be cared for, if you’re willing to come with us. If you want to stay, we will not force you.”

The cows looked at each other, curiously. Two older female cows, too old to bear calves, swayed their heads and lumbered back out into the field. The remaining herd consisted of 5 females, one bull and 2 calves. Kathryn simply nodded. “It’s a good start,” she said simply.

Kathryn trotted to the nearby barn and found the hayloft one third still full of hay. Carefully climbing a ladder clearly meant for bipedal creatures, she managed to get up there, pop open the hay loft outer doors and bucked a bunch of hay bales out the door & into the field.

Dr Jamie managed to disconnect the electric water pump and plug on a fire hose (found on the side of the building for emergencies) to an old fashioned hand pump. He had used a home-use water testing kit from his medical bag and found the water in that well to be sanitary. He then pumped the water trough’s full of fresh water.

The cows mooed in appreciation of their actions and proceeded to chow down.

Griz came over, wiping the last of the chicken blood from her feathers and throwing the paper towels into a fire pit. “I think you guys ought to collect the chickens. They’ve been hit by marauders and are terrified of me,” she said in her usual squawky, gruff voice.

“Maybe that’s because they see you as a hawk? Or they saw you take up their dead friend to the butcher shack?” Dr Jamie said, overly sweetly.

“Give a girl a break! I haven’t had chicken in at least a month and I'm about to pull my feathers out here. Fish can only go me so far and sea gulls are too thin to be worth the effort!” she exclaimed.

Dr Jamie & Kathryn were too obviously trying not to laugh but one look at Griz was too much and both fell on the ground, bawling with laughter. When they came to their senses, Kathryn licked a hoof and rubbed a spot of blood from Griz’s forehead that made her look like she had a third cartoony eye.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up you too...” she said begrudgingly as she smoothed the feathers back into place.

“Just wait until I get the chickens into a traveling crate before you start grilling the hen, ok?” Kathryn asked. Griz simply nodded.

The three of them checked out the barn and found that the farm had the most high-tech milking systems. Dr Jamie hurried forward and started looking over the whole system. He kept muttering to himself and gestures with his hooves.

Eventually, he came back to give his report. “It looks like it’s already been running on solar power... they’re probably in a field not far from here and so should not be too hard to hook up back at Campus City. Sadly the milk in the vats will have to be dumped; they’re too heavy to transport as they are. We might be able to salvage a little bit but the gauges read as 89% full. And so long as I label everything properly, should only take me a couple of hours to get this hooked up,” Dr Jamie said, confidently.

“How the heck do you know all of this, Doc?” Griz asked.

“I.... I grew up on a dairy farm as a kid; one not unlike this, as a matter of fact. We had an almost identical milking system,” he said, letting a bit of blush show through the dark color of his fur.

“From farm boy to doctor... I'm glad the universe sent you to us!” Kathryn laughed as she swung a foreleg over his neck in a friendly hug. Dr Jamie simply blushed a darker maroon.

Kathryn left Dr Jamie and Griz to dismantle the set while she went to see about the poor chickens. She had found a box of chicken feed inside a storage shed attached to the outside of the coop and started spreading the food inside, after pulling open the wall’s handle with her teeth, speaking gently to the chickens to calm their nerves.

“No need to fear us... we were humans but are now this. We want to take you somewhere else, where the bad animals can’t get you anymore,” she said gently. The rooster started bawking angrily and Kathryn seemed to understand. “My friend, the big hawk-thing, Griz, is not a hawk... she’s a griffon; a half eagle, half lion. She normally eats fish and wild birds. She was only taking advantage of the situation... umm... she didn’t want your friend’s death to be in vain. Your friend will give her strength she needs to save you,” Kathryn tried to explain. She wasn’t sure how much they’d understand but his squawking seemed to stop and they twittered quietly between them.

The three hens then jumped and took their spots in the nests, showing Kathryn their eggs. She smiled brightly. “Of course we can take your eggs! I’d never leave them behind,” she said. “We’re not leaving any of them behind.”

The rooster went over to a fourth nest and sat on them, cocking his head. “Is that the nest of your poor friend? We’ll take those too, for sure.” The chickens seemed happy with that response and clucked quietly as Kathryn prepared separate crates for each bird and nest. Logically, the rooster was put in the same crate as the dead chicken’s nest, so he could keep caring for it.

Kathryn then carefully carried each crate to the back seat of her pickup, after laying a tarp down first, and slid each one into place, securing the whole section when all four were in place. She then gently placed a thin tarp over-top; one of the hens clucked curiously. “Just a little cover so you all don’t get afraid of my dog. Don’t worry, she won’t hurt any of you... she’s there to protect you.” The four chickens settled down, quietly giving off clicking noises as they settled on the nests.

Kathryn walked back over to the barn to see how the progress was going. She was shocked to see that Dr Jamie had already disconnected all of the pipes and pieces, laying them all out neatly on the floor and was taking photos with a small tablet he had brought with him.

“Geez Griz, that was quick!” Kathryn said, nearly startling the griffon as her plumage perked up slightly. “Nah, it was all Doc! He sure knows his stuff,” Griz replied, gesturing a talon towards the Earth pony.

“Chickens are all calmed down and put in the back seat of my pickup. I’ll have Raea with me in the cow transporter truck... they’ve been traumatized enough for one day. That chicken you butchered was their friend; she gave up her life so the others could survive. The others saved her nest; rooster has nested on it for now. They know you won’t hurt them, by the way.” Griz could only blink in astonishment at Kathryn’s report on the birds. Griz looked for the usual leg-pulling from her but found none and so let it go.

Between the three of them, they got most of the components loaded into either the flat back or the flatbed trailer of Kathryn’s pickup. Hooking up a pipe, they were able to drain the most of the milk from the vats out into a drainage ditch; Dr Jamie was able to keep about 10% in each of the three tanks.

Surprisingly, it was the bull that came over when he saw the ponies & griffon struggle to get the vat over to the trailer. {1} They had managed to slide an old skateboard under the vat and lasso a rope around the whole thing but it was too heavy to pull for any of them, even the Earth ponies! But he sauntered in, grabbed the rope in his teeth and dragged it outside; he had to reverse his grip as there was a slight slope down but he managed to hold the vat slowly enough that they got it to the trailer and he helped to bring each vat onto its side on the low-rise trailer.

The pair of calves was watching the whole thing happening, mooing to the bull in encouragement. When he finished with one vat, he’d moo back to them and they’d leap in place or pound their hooves on the ground.

When all three vats were on the trailer and lashed down with Griz’s precision tying skills, Kathryn went over to the bull and bowed her head. “Thanks for the help, friend,” she said humbly. He bowed his own head before turning back to the herd, gave a moo and then looked back at Kathryn. “I get it,” she said quietly. “You know we’re here to help you and you want to help us help your family.” The bull bowed his head once more, serenely.

“Doc may know about the machines, but you got a-way with the animals, Kathy,” Griz said beside her.

“What about the two cows in the back field?” Dr Jamie asked. “They do not wish to come with us. And I will not force them to. In this new world, all animals have the same rights as we do,” Kathryn said.

---

{2}It was only a couple of hours before they were ready to start loading the cows. Griz made a change in the plans at the very last minute. “Dr. Jamie, you drive Kathryn’s pick up and Kathryn will drive a big rig instead while I take care of my prize. I will catch up with you later when I'm done," Griz said, gesturing a claw at the outdoor fire pit complete with a grill still placed over it.

Kathryn and Griz made eye contact a look of understanding passed between them and Kathryn nodded her understanding. Luckily for them Dr Jamie already figured out how to drive a pickup truck as a pony and so the switch was an easy one.

Kathryn hurried out to the fields of cows were waiting in gave a whistle; all of the cows and the two calves started trotting towards her. “It’s time to get loaded up and head to your new home!” Kathryn said excitedly. The cows mooed in what sounded like an eager tone and Kathryn lead them to the bigger pickup with the transporting trailer already hooked up to it.

One of the cows went in first, followed immediately by the two calves, and then the other females followed, leaving the bull to be the last one loaded and thus, the first one to exit when they arrived.

“Well played, my friend,” Dr Jamie said with a chuckle. The bull looked the doctor in the eye, offered a sway of the head and then turned to enter the trailer.

Kathryn was able to stack a bunch of the hay bales into the trailer along with the cows so they’d have something to munch on for the trip; she also put in a few to the flat back of the bigger truck. She’d likely send Dr Jamie back out here with the flatbed to get the rest later... maybe send Jazz or Patrick with him...

Kathryn made one last check to make sure the chickens were all settled and to tell them that Raea was in a different truck so nothing to worry about. She also saw the four bags of chicken feed they had taken from a storage room of the barn; each bag was approximately 40 lbs but she and Dr Jamie had carried two each on their backs with no trouble at all.

“Be careful with my baby... she’s all I got left of my home town,” Kathryn said as Dr Jamie jumped into the driver’s seat. “Don’t worry, Kathryn. I’ll treat her like she was my own,” he replied. That only earned him a friendly, gentle slug on the shoulder.

She walked back to the cow’s trailer to inform them that they’d be leaving very shortly. The adult female at the front gave a thankful ‘moo’ as Kathryn turned back to Griz, who was pouring coals onto the fire pit.

“How long do you think you’ll be?” she asked. “Bird alone will likely be 40 to 60 minutes; you’ll be halfway back to CC by then so don’t wait up for me. I’ll just meet you back there; I can follow the highway back; no worries,” she said.

Kathryn felt unsure but she trusted Griz to know what she was about so she turned and leaped into the bigger pickup’s driver’s seat and revved the engine.

They were down the road in minutes, Kathryn with her GPS leading the way. The last two cows that stayed behind were mooing at the edge of the fence, saying their final good-byes.

And true to Griz’s estimation, she feasted on a perfectly cooked campfire chicken in an hour and the caravan beat her back to Campus City.

---

By the time Griz got back, Kathryn had already introduced the herd & chickens to Sarah, Patrick & Jazz AND unloaded the animals into the new pen. Patrick showed Dr Jamie & Kathryn the modified indoor locations for both cows and chickens. He had cut a hole in the door of the staff room (across the hall from the new cow door) and removed all of the furniture to make room for sets of brand new, two tiered nest boxes on either side of a single aisle. At the back, was a single flat-sided tray covered in a garbage bag; Patrick explained that it was a potty box and that there were multiple of these set around the grass field as well.

Inside the cow’s indoor hall, Patrick had cut into the floor and inserted what appeared to be small perimeter but deep depth swimming pool liners. He explained how there were two more but bigger of these out in the grass field; they were ‘poop pools’; the cows would go in them and then Sarah could levitate them out and empty into outdoor compost piles downwind from the campus. The compost would later be used in the farm fields and orchard.

“Fruit & veggie scraps will also go into the compost, reducing our trash,” Sarah added.

Kathryn and Sarah were just getting the chickens settled in, checking all of the eggs to make sure that there were actual chicks inside using a very strong lamp. Kathryn explained to the chickens that if there were no chicks inside an egg, that the ponies would eat them and that the light did not harm the chicks at all. The chickens decided that this was a very fair exchange.

Kathryn had checked each of the nests, actually finding one or two eggs that did not contain chicks. She explained that by removing those ‘empties’ would let them take care of the ones with ‘babies’.

She also checked the large straw-filled basket that she had filled with all of the other eggs from the coop. A few were solid dark, which meant they had gone bad – but unknown if they had been ‘empties’ or ones with ‘babies’ -and she had Sarah carefully levitate those into a second bucket for compost. They did find a couple with babies’ still alive inside! The rooster recognized them as hen-less and so he offered the nest he cared for, as a surrogate of sorts. The rest of them, that Kathryn proved were empty, she marked with a pen and placed back into the basket to be taken to the kitchen.

“Once Campus City gets their own land unicorn, they’ll be in charge of checking the eggs and emptying the litter bins so you won’t have to all the time, Sarah,” Kathryn said as Sarah levitated the basket carefully in front of her. “Hey, no worries!” Sarah gave a smile that seemed unnaturally big for her face. “I don’t mind, really! It is gonna be a while before we sink the boats and so anything that keeps be busy is ok with me!”

On their way back, Sarah showed them how the whole fencing worked because it was a little different. “This actually crosses over the main walking way through to the farm fields without having to go all the way around. So this is what you do: when you come here, make sure that there are no cows in the path or at least ask if it’s ok for you to pass; you un-loop the rope on the first fence and open it; then you slip in and retie it; then you repeat with the other one. It is a little time consuming... hoping you might have some ideas?” Sarah said that like a suggestion and a question at the same time. “I’ll think about it,” Kathryn said.

That night for dinner, they planned to make a bunch of egg meals and then just set it up like a buffet. They prepared hard-boiled, scrambled, sunny side up, over easy, poached, and even a few omelettes were made (plain, diced tomato, diced tomato & mushroom).

About half way through the prep, Griz finally arrived back, carrying a backpack and blood-shot eyes like she had been crying. She said nothing as she walked into her room, dropped the backpack and walked back outside and taking off for the forest to the southwest.

She came back about an hour later, carrying a large bundle of thin branches; again, she said nothing and merely walked to her room and closed the door. Even from the distance, Kathryn heard the click of the lock.

It was not long before Kathryn finally went to Griz’s room, formerly a larger conference room. She hesitated a moment before knocking her hoof on the door.

A few seconds later, Griz opened the door, fresh streaks of tears running down her face. “What?” she asked roughly. “Are you ok, Griz? We’re all worried about you,” Kathryn said. “May I come in?”

Griz backed up, shrugging her shoulders, allowing Kathryn to enter. The room had been emptied of previous furniture and in the middle, a bunch of old mattresses made the base for what looked like a gigantic bird’s nest: made from a mix of blankets, pillows, random clothes and tree branches. The cork board walls all held pieces of gold disk jewelry and the floor was piled with any coins Griz could get her claws on... and not normal circulation USA money either! There were the thicker 1 pound coins from Europe, the loonies of Canada, specialty USA coins (like the commemorative kind) and even a few were ancient ones still in non-circulation protective packaging. Oddly enough, she also had a whole bunch of the chocolate coins that Kathryn enjoyed as a kid; those were in a separate pile behind the door.

There were piles of other stuff that could be classified as ‘gold’: skeleton keys, rings that did not fit her talons, lengths of chain criss-crossed the ceiling (the really long ones that can be bought by the yard/meter at places like Home Depot), bracelets, bits of wire, a rock of pyrite (“fool’s gold”) the size of her head, earrings, saxophone, and a few other odd items that clearly had been taken from a museum. Griz had also somehow gotten her claws on about five gold bars; Kathryn could not even speculate how those got there but quickly realized that admiring Griz’s quarters was not her mission there.

“Griz? Are you ok? You haven’t seemed like you since you got back from that farm,” Kathryn said, hesitantly. Griz stared out her window that faced the beach they used, wiping the back of her claw across her eyes.

“That farm we raided.... it was my family’s farm.” Griz did not move from her spot, even when Kathryn gasped and put a hoof to her mouth, in that old human gesture of surprise. But after a moment, Griz shook her head.

“It hasn’t been my family’s farm in a couple of years. My dad decided to retire and I could not run the farm alone. So he put it on the market,” Griz finally moved from the window, taking the old, dirty backpack in a claw and reclining on her nest.

“I was glad to see the new owner was taking great care of the animals and I left a note for them, saying as such, and telling them where we brought their animals to.

But I had to stick around to recover something that I had forgotten about when I moved my dad out... it’s a time capsule....” Griz got really quiet and Kathryn wasn’t sure she should pry.

But Griz went on. She pulled out a dirt-covered cylindrical object from the backpack, tossing the latter into the golden clutter and reverently, carefully, opening the cylinder like a peanut butter jar. Dirt crumbled to the floor and the lid soon followed.

Slowly... excruciatingly slowly... Griz pulled out a bunch of papers sealed in plastic. Kathryn carefully approached and saw that they were newspaper articles, photos, letters and a beautiful gold compass necklace inside a necklace box that Griz opened very slowly. Her already red eyes filled with tears again at the sight of the necklace she clearly recognized: a gold compass-designed disk on a thick black cord.

“My mother and little sister died in a car accident when I was in my early teens. You know the kind: drunk driver at pitch black. They were coming back from my sister’s ballet lessons; she was going onto the New York Ballet Company when she grew up, I just knew it at the time. Neither of them survived but... But the bucking drunk driver walked away without a scratch!”

Griz broke down, crying again as she took the necklace from the box, placing the latter into a nook of the nest. She clutched the pendant like it was a life line.

Kathryn could see and now read all of the articles about the crash; letters of condolences from her sister’s ballet school & others; a photo of the whole family together, maybe a year before the accident. She, of course, had to keep reminding herself that Griz had been male before the event.

When Griz gathered herself, she continued. “This was my mum’s favorite necklace. She got it from her grandmother when she graduated from college. She always said it was lucky; she wasn’t wearing it the day of the crash. But as a boy back then, it felt weird to wear a necklace... not like it was before the Event. But I figured that since I'm now a girl, it’d be ok.

My dad passed away about a year after selling the farm. He left me a huge bank account (that is now meaningless) and he left me alone.

But since we’ve been living and working together, I've come to realize that we are a new family. We may have been strangers, separated by time and space, but we are now friends and family.

I've learned that it’s ok to let go of the past without forgetting.”

With that, Griz carefully placed her mother’s necklace around her neck, having it fall perfectly where the feathers of her neck ended and the start of her lion fur started.

“It’s beautiful, Griz. I think they’d all be proud of you and they’re looking down on us,” Kathryn said, voice slightly choked up and a single tear in her own eyes.

They shared another hug before breaking off and helping Griz hang a few of the pictures from the capsule to the cork board wall next to the door. “So you’ll always see them when you leave the room. That’s how I hung mine in my RV,” Kathryn said.

She then helped Griz put the rest of it back into the canister and walked with her to the forest and re-bury it. “Maybe we should make a time capsule too,” Kathryn said out loud as they finished. Griz nodded. “Not a bad idea,” she said.

They both walked back to the university building. They exchanged another hug before Griz went back inside and Kathryn went to her RV.

She pulled out her tablet and started to write her entry for the day.

---

Author's Notes 2
{1} I don't actually know how much those vats weight and I had the funny idea of the bull helping out the 'poor feeble' ponies. But then the fact that the bull knew that these ponies were helping him and his family, it kinda got a little mushy there too!
{2} This bold section is where I tried my voice at Voice-To-Text for writing the story. As you can see, it was too slow and laborious to continue.

Thanks again to my fans who have stuck with me for so long! You're what make me keep going! Well, that and my autism tells me to keep going, no matter what time it is! (Posting 3:02 AM)

Comments

[Da Fennec]

Depends on how much milk they were producing when the tanks were installed. Though for a dairy farm with the setup you described I would expect a much larger herd than 5-6 animals. The other issue would be the tanks would be bolted to the ground. Milk like water is going to weight at least 8lbs per gallon

[kitten_girl86]

7611363 I explain the size in the next chapter, don't worry. And thanks for that about those vats

[Da Fennec]

7612253 Ok did a little searching at least 1 site listed a 283Gallon milk tank at 560Lbs empty. AS for salvaging any of the milk modern dairies aren't really in the practice of storing unprocessed milk for over a month

[kitten_girl86]

7612389 You have to remember that there's been no one to empty those vats, hence them being so full

[Da Fennec]

7612474 Wouldn't take that long to fill the tanks. Most places ship the milk out daily with few excepts holidays ect

[kitten_girl86]

7612482 It's a story... i was bound to get a few things wrong

[breyercrazy]

Really loving this :) i love the idea of merponies!