The night passes slowly, restless with thoughts and excitement. Five fluffies. You had never seen that many at once before. While the one stayed with you for a while, the others ate and played. While it would’ve been nice to stay and watch longer, the fact the workweek started tomorrow meant a full night’s sleep was more important.
“Sweepies gud. Fwuffy sweep soon, tu.”
Where did these fluffies come from, anyhow? While home was kind of a small area, there were still a lot of people in the neighborhood you didn’t know. A river ran alongside the road, but most of it was cemented up as erosion control near the residential areas. There was a public park, and lots of forest further up past it.
Were they abandoned pets? Did they get lost from their homes? Escapees? What were their stories? How were they living out here and how long?
The taste of berries fills your mouth while you chew a melatonin tablet. After making sure your alarm is set you set the fan on low. Cool air as summer begins to end and white noise to boot.
Shoot, you should’ve asked the fluff for its name.
The great thing about weekends is you get time to recoup, recover, and rest. The bad part about weekends is the inevitable rush of work coming in from customers who discovered they needed something and they absolutely had to talk to YOU about it. Not anyone else, you. Its good to have “your” customers at times, but sometimes you wish they’d trust your coworkers as well.
The day was a bit of a bear.
Thankfully, dinner is ready. Kimo was shocked that the kitchen lacked a slow cooker, nevermind an Instapot. One large crockpot one the counter is full of enough chili to last you the week, another in the fridge is full of oatmeal with fruit mixed in. The Instapot is filled with soup for lunches, being set in its own slow cooker mode.
The oatmeal should be a day or two’s worth of food for the fluffies when mixed with kibble.
Apparently Kimo’s family has a few fluffies of their own on the farm. Which, of course, he’s had to help with now and then. Use poles, stakes, and chicken wire to make temporary pens, have the fluffs graze on whatever cover crop they grew there between plantings, mix the manure in with soil and voila! The soil gets a really good boost.
But since the cover crop was not necessarily enough for the fluffies they supplement it with kibble for nutritional essentials and oatmeal with whatever leftover fruit or veggies they happen to have around. He described them as “opportunistic omnivores,” making them a great way to reclaim harvested things that couldn’t be sold due to damage, being over-ripe, whatever. The oatmeal helped their feces be more solid thus more manageable due to its fiber content. Good, cheap, quick, and easy were their priorities.
Apparently things like quinoa, beans, and brown rice do pretty well too. He just recommended getting whatever was cheapest at the time. Short grain white rice wasn’t recommended as it didn’t have enough fiber or nutrition to be of any real use, but would work if nothing else was available. It offered calories, after all. It was noted that some folks would come up with complex blends of things, but those folks were full-time fluff-herders or breeders making money off of fluffies.
A short nap turned into a long one, but hopefully wouldn’t mess with your sleep schedule too much. If nothing else, figuring out the fluffies prefer to come out in the open at night was good. There’s not the same number of predators on Maui as there is on the Mainland aside from cats, dogs, mongoose, things like that. The worst thing for them to deal with would be humans, honestly, and they’re mostly busy during the day. It makes sense.
When you come out you can see the fluffies in the yard. A large green fluffy is playing tug-of-war with a smaller pink one using a dog’s rope toy. Sitting amongst a small pile of mango tree leaves is a yellow one, eating them in seeming contentment. The hoof of a blue fluffy taps on the food dish as if trying to make kibble appear while a brown one sits and watches as you walk towards the group.
Good thing you remembered to hit the lights before dozing off. It really helps.
“Good evening fluffies,” you smile.
“Hewwo!” they sing back.
“Dinner time!” The fluffies’ eyes light up as they scamper to the dishes, the blue fluff practically dancing in place. The bowls are picked up and set of plastic shelves Kimo had you buy. The working surface is nice, allowing you to scoop the cold oatmeal from the crock and into the bowls uninterrupted then top with about half as much kibble. The now filled bowls are set down on the ground and are almost immediately swarmed with a rainbow of fluff.
The blue one eats with wild abandon, even managing to flip the bowl onto its head. A quick shake gets it off, oatmeal and kibble covering its mane and face. The green one is headfirst into its dish but peeks up periodically to make sure the pink one is eating too. The yellow one brought mango leaves with it, dropping them into the dish to eat with everything else. And the brown one eats slowly, sticking its head up and looking around from time to time.
As they finish eating you’re rewarded with a disjointed chorus of “t’ank yu” and “gud nummies.” Coos and happy noises rise through the night air.
“I’m glad you liked it! By the way, I don’t think we’ve been introduced.” They smile at you as you tell them your name. They seem to like it. “So, who and what are all of you?”
“Fwuffy namsie iz Sonic!” the blue one cheers, still trying to get oatmeal off his head. “Am stawwion! Wub yu!”
“Am Huwk,” the green one says as he nudges the pink one gently. “Dis am bwuddah, Bubbwegum.”
“Hewwo!” Bubblegum chirps. “Huwk bestes bwuddah!”
“Am Coco,” the brown one says, looking at you quietly. “Am mawe.”
“Saffwon am Saffwon!” the yellow one practically sings. “Am soon-mama!”
((feedback and questions welcome))
