A small smile curved her tinted lips as he spoke, “Thats me, I’m Imogene. This is for you,” she spoke excitedly as she handed him the thermos of tea, “It’s hot tea, it gets pretty cold around here so if you decide this is your kind of work then you’ll have an endless supply of it,” Imogene said with a playful smile, it had been a long time since she’d met someone new. Mostly everyone knew everyone - so it was a risk letting someone you didn’t take care of your livestock, your livelihood which wasn’t something most native borns were willing to risk. When her parents passed away she had inherited the farm as per their agreement, despite not getting along with them it led her to this life where she was now. In fact the main reason she had so many animals was because her parents bought so many with no real reason to have them other than for meat; their care had been poor at best and that was being nice.
Her drive to save and protect animals had always been something on the forefront of her mind, when she took the farm over the first thing she did was give all the animals a thorough check up on her own. Several of her reindeer had to be put to sleep due to cancer, and she also lost a cat due to it developing a deadly lung condition. “I have reindeer, a couple cows, three horses, a dog and one cat that I know of - sometimes we have more that show up out of the blue,” it wasn’t uncommon for random cats to show up on her property, people often let their pets out so she would spay or neuter them then send them on their way a day later.
“So, the basic chores take me about four hours to complete, but you’re a lot stronger than I am so it’ll take you less - you’d also help me with health checks. I do them twice a month on every animal, just to make sure there is no abnormal growths,” she explained to him as she led him over to the reindeer enclosure, “These are my pride and joy, they’re used for meat more often than not but they are also loaned out to the mall in Anchorage for the holiday season. During that time I have a friend go stay with them while they’re in the city and in good health,”
Imogene climbed over the gate and into the enclosure, “They’re very friendly, and they get endless amounts of forage a day as well as a full trough of the blend I guys for them. They get fresh carrots and apples a couple times a week too,” the chores were something she never had issues with but someone who had never cared for animals before it might be a bit of a trial. He seemed to be in good shape so her concern wasn’t his lack of energy, it was over all skill and willingness to be around her animals. “Have you ever been around farm animals before?”