Hobby Horse
Chapter 9
Compromise
written by:
skettiswipuw
“♫ Booooob!♪”
Mrs. Cooter ran through the damp grass to catch Bob as he was trudging to the barn. The hem of her nightgown was getting damp.
“Oh Bob, I just got the most wonderful news! We’ve been approved for a farm loan of ten thousand dollars!! Now we can make this the most incredible fluffy farm there ever was! Oh I’ve just gotten so many ideas from watching FluffTV, lately. In fact, we’re going to install an enormous television in the barn so the babies can watch FluffTV all the time! And we’ll have speakers outside the barn playing all their lovely mummah songs! And we’re going to build them all a dedicated saferoom! And we can even start a greenhouse and a garden to raise good healthy treats for all of the babies!
Oh Bob isn’t it just the most wonderful thing you’ve ever heard!?!”
Bob was hung-over. He had spent most of the previous night drinking whiskey and chasing it with beer.
“Yuh, that’s pretty great, Mrs. Cooter burp we’ll be able to do…do…lots of stuff.”
“Bob, can you run an internet line down to the barn? I think we should have a dozen cameras broadcasting our fluffies far and wide, twenty-four/seven! That way people can see how well our fluffies are being treated.”
While Bob was completely capable of running such a line, he drunkenly thought up a few reasons why it wouldn’t, or couldn’t work.
“Margaret, I’ll admit that it could be done, but you’re looking at a much larger expense than you realize. We’ll need a dedicated server, redundant cables, cameras that aren’t prone to dying just because they get covered in shi…err…poopies. It’s a much bigger project than you think.”
“Oh but my friend in Walla-Walla says that he runs his live feed off of wifi! Can’t you just run it all on wifi?”
Bob tried not to let it show that he wanted to slap the old woman for even suggesting this.
“No, we can’t do an ad-hoc wifi meshnet because you have metal roofs on every building around here.”
“Buh, but my friend has a metal roof on his pool-house and he says everything works fine!”
“Mrs. Cooter, I hope that you’ll trust me when I tell you that we cannot run a video streaming channel the way you want to. It cannot be done. It would have to be hard-wired, and even then the distances that we’re dealing with would require amplifiers in between the main station and the satellites.”
“Oh Bob, we’re not sending these signals to space, we’re just sending them around the world!”
“…I’m not talking about Satellites in Space, Mrs. Cooter.”
“Well, just think about it and get back to me. I’m going to start finding contractors to make changes to the farm!”
The old woman positively pranced back to the big house without a care in the world.
Are you fucking kidding me? This woman has a farm where ferals can just waltz on in at any time and she’s concerning herself with broadcasting video of foal births?!?
Let it go, Bob. Let it go. She’s paying your wages each week, just…just…deal with it.
Bob’s mind calmed down a bit, but still labeled this bitch as a fucking moron.
If the dumb cunt only knew he had performed surgery on one of her precious fluffies to make it a valuable member of the herd just yesterday she would freak out.
Worse than that she LOVED to spend money. Not on her servants, of course. Those people were just peons to be pawned about, but she absolutely loved to buy expensive, needless trinkets to show how wonderful her life was. She would invite her friends in from far and wide just to show off her trinkets.
She had four reclining pool chairs made from recycled milk jugs and colored in the most garish shades you could imagine because (survey says!) they’re so pretty.
That improvement cost a cool 12 hundred bucks.
She installed a sauna in the pool house because a televangelist on the TV had told her that GAWD spoke to people who meditated in a sauna. That only cost her three thousand dollars.
She had a massive oil-on-canvas painting hanging in her living room, and who was the the subject of the painting? Why it was Mrs. Cooter in her younger days. What a surprise.
There were half a dozen Jesus statues scattered around her little garden to help the plants grow big and strong! Every one of them had come from some factory in China.
Basically speaking, if she saw it on the TV, she knew it must be true.
Bob didn’t watch TV.
He concerned himself with two things; Here, and Now.
And so far as he was concerned, this farm was still a fucking wreck.
“So I guess I should get together a list of the things we need at the barn, right?”
Mrs. Cooter was taken aback by this. How could Bob possibly think that he had “needs” when she had so many wants to fulfill with her newfound money!
“I…I guess. If there is actually stuff you need for the barn, give me a list. But it can’t exceed $1000!”
She was so magnanimous when she was spending money she didn’t have to earn.
But Bob could work with a grand. He’d already been working with far less.
“Alright, I’ll get you that list.”
Bob hated dealing with the old Cooter but he really had no choice at this point. It was either acquiesce to her desires, or find some other job. And while this flu pandemic raged, it wasn’t easy to find other jobs.
Fluff TV was broadcast Over-the-Air which meant that Bob could put an antenna on the barn and get the same service that others were getting from monthly-subscription cable or satellite service.
This difference in service-providers would pay for itself within three months.
That much was simple enough to talk her into.
But when she wouldn’t have 24/7 surveillance of the barn she balked
“Buh, but how can I show people how the fluffies are born!? People won’t be able to see the poor little fluffs opening their eyes and speaking their first words!”
Bob was half expecting her to end her statement with the typical fluffy “Huuuuuu!”
but that didn’t happen…
…this time…
“Margaret, I keep telling you that we have bigger problems than the ones you want to focus on. But you never believe me until fluffies start dying. I really wish you would trust me for once.”
She looked at Bob the same way the fluffies did when they were first told that they weren’t going to get Sketti every single day.
Bob wanted to whip her with a sorry stick.
Hobby Horse
Chapter 9.1
Learning new tricks
written by:
skettiswipuw
Bob slept in the barn because he knew he had three pregnant mares close to giving birth.
So he watched over the mare herd that night.
Gus was more than happy to keep company with his nu daddeh.
The enfie pal had eaten it’s sketties, and now it was…chatty.
“Oh! Oh! Missuh Fawmuh Bawb! Gus jus wemembew sumfin him hewd tuday!”
“Oh, what did you hear? “
“Well, Gus, him heaw dat dem stawwions not gunna 'tack bad fencie fow a coupla daysies.”
It took a minute for Bob to figure out what Gus was saying.
“So the boys want to attack the fence, but they’re waiting a couple of days so they can build up their strength.”
“Yuh! Dat wite missuh fawmuh Bawb”
Bob smiled at Gus
“Thank you, little buddy. Would you like a treat?”
The boxed enfie pal beamed with pride and hope.
“Yus, Gus wan a tweat!” the remnants of Gus’ tail wagged furtively.
After a moment Gus seemed to remember that he was completely at the farmer’s mercy and he added
“pwease?”
“Alright. I’m going to open up your box, and put you on the bed.”
Bob thumbed the lock open and spread the doors of the converted toolbox.
Gus was in pretty good condition. It didn’t have major sores or ligature marks on it’s skin.
But it certainly was happy to feel the night’s breeze across it’s skin.
“Oh! Dat kinda cowd, missuh fawmuh Bawb”
“Yeah, I’d imagine it is.”
Bob drew a small blanket over Gus, and rubbed it down onto it’s body.
The fluffless fluff relaxed into a warm little pile of happiness for a few minutes.
“Hey Gus”
“yuh?”
“I want you to try something with me. I want to run an experiment.”
“Wut spewiment?”
Poor Gus was half asleep at this point.
“Well, I’m going to start rolling you over, and when you can take over and finish the roll, I want you to tell me.
Gus absentmindedly agreed to this experiment. It regretted this choice later on, but didn’t hold a grudge over the issue.
Bob lifted Gus’ laying angle to about 50 degrees.
The fluff protested and whimpered for a moment.
“Can you push yourself over, from here? Can you roll onto your back from this point?”
Gus was terrified, but tried to listen to missuh fawmuh Bawb and he heaved all of the muscles he had left into rolling over onto his back.
……and he rolled!
He didn’t depend on hims weggies to move, he simply rolled onto his back.
“YES! Good job Gus! Well done!” Bob was elated. Maybe the extra time he’d taken in studying the different methods of de-legging fluffies would prove fruitful.
He got down on the level of the bed, and looked Gus in the eye.
“Okay. You did the easy part already. Now comes the hard part.”
Gus was having trouble breathing, but he hung on every word Bob spoke
“Now you have to flip over onto your belly. Okay? You’re going to sling every muscle in your little body over this way Bob demonstrated with his hands and you’re going to flip over onto your belly.
Gus tried mightily. He could roll himself a few degrees, and he started understanding the timing of his exertions.
Bob slid his fingers under one side of the potato-shaped fluff, and gave it an advantage.
Gus bumped against his fingers, teetered at the apex, and then fell over onto it’s tummy.
Both of them cheered for this tiny victory.
