Apokalypsis | Book 6 | Apokalypsis 6 Morris, Kate (cheapest way to read ebooks TXT) 📖

in the vast pasture, working on herding the cows towards the exit. Wren needed to practice horseback riding if she was going to be able to contribute more. She noticed that Spencer was on an ATV since his arm was broken.

The goats loaded fairly easily, even the babies, which were ridiculously cute and made the most adorable noises ever. They stuck to their mom’s sides like glue.

Then they shut the trailer door and locked it.

The chickens weren’t too hard to load, either, and they stored them in dog crates and smaller metal crates that looked homemade like a pigeon cage. She didn’t care for those chickens, though. Their claws scratched and hurt when she tried to catch and carry them. Their feathers maniacally flapped as if they were being murdered. Some even pecked nastily. Clearly, they had trust issues. However, she and the others also gathered their freshly laid eggs in a bucket and placed it in the back of the truck.

“Chickens are the same,” Poppy said as she handed the last crate to Elijah that contained four chickens packed in side by side. They didn’t seem pleased with their travel arrangements. Wren wasn’t pleased about handling them. They seemed mean and aggressive. The goats were a lot meeker, which was her speed.

“Same?” she asked.

“Scare easily,” she clarified. “In case you didn’t notice. They might not lay for a few days. It’s hard to tell.”

“I know we’ve got plenty of room for them at the farm,” Elijah said.

He sent a farewell wave to Roman, who waved his ballcap back in their direction. The cattle drive looked like it was going to be the much more challenging job.

They drove slowly to the farm where Maureen was staying, the mother of Jane, who nobody seemed to know well yet. The woman mostly kept to herself in the old farmhouse and didn’t interact much with anyone. Wren didn’t trust her. She put off a vibe that she didn’t like.

“Let’s take a look around and see where we can get these animals set up for the night,” Elijah suggesting, parking by the barn.

He led the way, and the other cows trotted over as if expecting to be fed. Inside the massive barn was the loafing area, which was a concrete slab with three aisles. Two long wooden feed and hay troughs separated the aisles and the animals. Or so Elijah had explained it. He remembered a little from helping out his uncle over on their farm, but a lot of it he was just too young and probably disinterested to invest too much time and energy into memorizing.

“Oh!” Poppy exclaimed as they circumvented the loafing area.

“What is it?” Elijah asked.

“This is bad,” she commented. “This needs cleaned out. Your cows are gonna get sick. This is going to need to be cleaned out very soon. The manure must be nearly a foot deep.”

“Oh,” Elijah said in a surprised tone of his own. “I guess we don’t really know what we’re doing yet with the animals. These aren’t even our cows. They were here when we arrived. My farm’s the next one over. Some of the group brought some cows and horses, but some were here from the previous owner.”

“I’ll get Benjamin on that skid steer over there to get this cleaned out first thing in the morning,” she told him. “Rain, snow or sunshine, farm work has to get done. This can’t wait till spring. You have any pregnant heifers, and you’re gonna have them giving birth in their own filth. Not good.”

After she inspected the loafing pad, Wren wasn’t so sure she wanted this girl to look at the rest. Elijah was right. They weren’t experienced, and she was beginning to feel stupid.

“Ah, yes,” Poppy remarked and pushed her stocking cap back from her forehead just slightly. “This is a good area here.”

She was referring to a place that didn’t have concrete. It was in the darker part of the barn in the back corner. The outer barn walls were made of massive sandstone, probably over a hundred years old. Two stone walls created the corner, and two walls facing the interior of the barn were built using ancient oak boards. The ceiling in this part of the barn was low, as well, about eight or nine feet. Wren didn’t know what it had once been used for, but probably not cows.

“Yes, this is perfect,” Poppy said, opening the wooden gate and going inside. “Needs a little cleaning up, some bedding, but there’s feed troughs over here.”

She indicated the long, low row of wooden troughing. This girl knew a lot more about this stuff than them.

“We’ll help,” Wren offered. “Just tell us what to do.”

“Okay,” she returned. “It’s not too bad, but I don’t know what was kept in here before.” She kicked around on the dirt floor. “Whatever it was, the owners must’ve cleaned it out. I don’t see any clumps of manure.”

“That’s good, right?” Elijah asked.

“Yes, that’s good,” she said. “No bacteria or animal parasites in it to transfer. That loafing pad? That’s another thing. A parasitic disaster, if you ask me. What’ve ya’ got for animal bedding?”

“Um…” Elijah said and shrugged.

“Where’s your hay kept?”

They took her upstairs, and she showed them where the shoot was to slide the haybales down, which they hadn’t known about. Then she showed them the difference between straw and hay.

“Not a lot of straw here,” she remarked. “But we can bring ours over tomorrow. This will work for just tonight.”

They helped her spread the yellow straw around on the floor of the new goat pen, and then they led them in. Basically, Poppy opened the trailer gate, and the goats followed her with blind trust and maybe even a little adoration. Elijah carried in the grain they’d brought for them from their farm and spread a small amount in the trough. Poppy handed her a baby goat, a beige and white one with a pink nose.

“I…I don’t know how to hold this,” she admitted.

“You’re doing