City Girl Pt. 10

A/N: Hey everyone and happy Easter. I finally managed to power through writer's block and get this chapter finished.

Part of what took me so long was actually researching silo capacities and forage yields to make sure I was at least somewhat close on the numbers in terms of feed.

I'm sure that by the time this gets published, I'll be well underway on the next chapter courtesy of the holiday weekend. Plus, the spring weather in my area has helped spur my motivation.

Anyway, you guys are here for the story, so I'll leave you to it.

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Chase sat and finished writing down some numbers he had managed to come up with. The thought had dawned on him that it would be really nice to grow his own cover crop seed to keep back and use for the next year. He'd also had a thought about using sorghum in lieu of corn silage since it tends to yield less. Plus, he'd heard that sorghum was much less finicky than corn could be. That would give him a rotation of corn, soybeans, wheat, hay, and he could then do both forage and grain sorghum. The forage sorghum would likely yield a bit lower than corn silage would, maybe low enough that he could get it all to fit in his 14x55 silo.

He'd figured that if he could fill the 14x55 silo that would be a little over 50 tons of dry matter, plus three cuttings of hay off of fifteen acres, assuming about 2.5 tons of dry matter per acre would total about 160 tons of dry matter. 160 tons was 320,000lbs which meant he needed to feed about 875lbs of dry matter per day. He knew that cattle would eat about 2.5% of their body weight in dry matter per day, depending on palatability. Dividing those would give him about 35000lbs of cattle that he could feed. Depending on the breed, that would give him somewhere between 20 and 35 head of full-grown cattle to feed. Part of him was leaning towards raising shorthorns, they tended to be good mothers, were docile, didn't have many calving issues, and also were pretty hardy, a good trait for dealing with the state's hot humid summers and cold winters.

If he did opt to go with that crop rotation, he would have to figure out how to deal with having four grasses and only one legume in his rotation. Corn, soybeans, wheat was a simple and common rotation. He could even plant sorghum as a cover crop after wheat and use the wheat stubble after baling the straw to haul manure on. The problem was how to tweak that rotation to include two sorghum crops and hay on a 5 or so year rotation.

"Well," he thought to himself, "what if I start with corn, then soybeans, then forage sorghum, then winter wheat, follow that with a legume of some description as a cover crop, and then do grain sorghum and then corn again." The minor issue he ran into with that was planting grain sorghum and corn, two warm season grasses, back to back. "But," he thought to himself "what if I put crimson clover in after that wheat? If I can get in there soon enough, I might be able to get the seed off of it before winter. Then I could put some in again between the sorghum and corn. Plus, that red clover will be a nice cover crop leading into corn and sorghum. Hell, I'm pretty sure crimson clover even winter kills pretty easily." Thinking that he might be on to a winning combination, he thought his way through it again. "Alright, corn, soybeans, forage sorghum, winter wheat, crimson clover, grain sorghum, crimson clover again. Then, every fifth year put the field that was going to go to corn to hay and put the hay field to corn."

He realized that he probably needed to write that down so he wouldn't forget. that was a bit of a mess to remember. He quickly wrote down what he had just thought of and leaned back in the chair he was sitting in. In the silence he heard a faint clicking coming from the living room and he got up and headed that way. As he rounded the corner, he caught sight of Sarah laying on his couch with a blanket laid over her. She was laying on her side and the blanket served to highlight the curves of her hips and legs as she lay there doing something on her phone. "And who are *you* texting?" He teased, using her own question from earlier against her.

She looked up at him, clearly a bit surprised to find him in the room. The surprise on her face faded as she realized that he had used her own line against her. "Stacy." She replied with a smirk.

"Oh yeah?" He answered. "How's she holding up being snowed in with Randy?"

"She says they're doing alright." She replied. At which point Chase heard the sound of a message popping up on her phone. "And apparently they're getting ready to watch a movie."

"Hmm." Chase replied thoughtfully.

"Honestly," Sarah admitted, "that doesn't sound like a bad idea right now."

"No, it doesn't." Chase agreed. He wasn't one to watch a ton of movies, but it wasn't like he had much of anything else to do. "Too bad I don't have any."

"I have Netflix on my phone." She quickly suggested. "If you have good internet, we can use that."

"Hmm." Chase replied. He walked over to the nearest window and looked outside. It was well past nightfall and he couldn't really see much, but he couldn't see any snow falling anymore and the wind had eased up a good deal too. He couldn't see any starts, indicating it was still overcast, but he was willing to bet the worst of the storm had passed them. "It looks like the storm's mostly past us so it might be alright." One of the bad things about living rurally was that the only real option for internet was satellite internet, which wasn't exactly superb at working during a blizzard. "That said," he added, as he checked the time on his phone, "it is after eight and I'd like to get a shower before we get too comfortable."

"I probably should too." Sarah agreed. "I'll get something picked out while you're in the shower and, after I get one too, we can get settled and watch. What would you like to watch?"

It took Chase a moment to process the question. "I'd be fine with a comedy or something." He answered.

"Alright I'll see if I can find some comedy specials or a comedy movie." She said. "Enjoy your shower."

"Yeah." He responded. "It'll probably feel good on my shoulder if nothing else." He added, thinking out loud. He then went to his bedroom and grabbed the T-shirt and shorts he slept in. He decided to undress in his bathroom to avoid walking through the house nude. After getting his things and making his way into the bathroom, he stripped down, turned on his shower and stepped in. The warm water did indeed relax the sore muscles in his shoulder, an effect which was helped by him massaging it a bit. As his shoulder relaxed, he turned his focus to washing himself, as if he had done enough to really get dirty that day.

After his shower, he dried himself off, got out and hung up his towel, and took a moment to look at the scars he had from surgery. They looked much better with the sutures out and even appeared to be healing somewhat, though it was obvious they were gonna stick around for a while. He proceeded to put on the t-shirt and shorts that he slept in and then picked up his clothes before taking them to the laundry room and sorting them. He then returned to the living room to find Sarah laying on the couch typing on her phone. As he approached, she noticed him and looked up from her phone. She didn't say anything but he did notice that her eyes were darting from his eyes, down, back up, back down, and so on for what must have been a couple seconds.

He cleared his throat, evidently snapping her out of whatever trance she was in. "I'm done," he said, "your turn."

Sarah simply nodded before grabbing her things and disappearing to go get her duffel bag. He noted that she seemed to be walking faster than usual, which did get him thinking a bit as he laid down where she had been on the couch. His thoughts were briefly interrupted by rapid footsteps as Sarah made her way towards the bathroom with her bag.

"Wonder what that's all about..." he thought to himself. Not long after that, he noticed a very subtle smell. He couldn't quite pin down exactly what it was, it was a scent he wasn't particularly familiar with. It was a distinctly animalistic scent but that was all he could really do to describe it. He took a couple sniffs to see if he could maybe get a better handle on it but, just as subtly as it had appeared, it had vanished. "Hmm." He thought to himself before letting his mind wander for a bit.

After some time, he noticed the shower turning off, indicating Sarah was evidently done with her shower and would be back soon. He got comfortable and laid there in silence for a couple minutes before Sarah came back out and took her bag back to where it had been and then started making her way towards him. She had evidently simply brushed her hair and fixed it up a bit rather than fully washing it because her hair was still dry. His eyes quickly drifted downwards from her hair to the cute sheepish look on her face and then onwards to what she was wearing.

She had on a plain pink T-shirt and a matching pair of shorts that reached a few inches down her thighs. Her shirt was just snug enough to show the shape of her breasts but not tight enough to show her entire torso. The shorts were nothing special, but the legs he could see beneath them looked even better without anything covering them. The smooth skin on her legs moved over the muscles in her thighs with each step as she made her way over to him. After getting a good look, he looked back up to her face to find that the sheepish look on her face had turned into an, obviously nervous, smile.

At that point, something finally clicked in his head. "Oh, I get it," he thought to himself, "she's trying to get my attention and now she's nervous because I'm actually giving it to her." He then responded to her nervous smile with a subtle grin of his own as she finished making her way over to the couch, stopping just in front of it and looking at him.

"What are you looking at?" He asked, teasing her.

"I could ask you the same question." She replied, her nerves obvious in her voice.

"I think you know exactly what I'm looking at." He said, eyeing her up and down a couple times. Her response was an extremely shy giggle. He smiled in response before continuing, not wanting to let his imagination get too carried away. "Come on," he said, patting the couch in front of him, "lay down and let's watch what you picked out."

Sarah simply nodded before laying down on top of him. As she got comfortable, the sensation of the skin of her legs brushing against the skin of his legs sent sensations along his spine that he wasn't sure he'd ever felt before. "That's kinda sad." He thought to himself. "How little experience with women do you have to have in order for skin to skin contact to get to you?" He sighed in spite of himself.

"You good?" Sarah asked. Apparently, she had noticed.

"I'm fine." He managed to answer. In reality, his imagination was starting to get away from him again as the feeling of having a very real, very attractive, woman literally laying on top of him was definitely probing the primal part of his brain and giving him undesired thoughts. He felt himself starting to get an erection and shifted himself slightly to prevent it from pressing into her.

"Ok." Sarah replied as she started looking around the room. "Do you have some way we can show this on your T.V.?" She asked.

"Nope." Chase replied. "Sorry, but we'll have to watch on your phone."

"Dang." Sarah replied as she started scanning the room. "Do you have something I can set my phone on so I don't have to hold it?"

Chase was about to answer when she sat up and grabbed the pillow from the other end of the couch. "That's a good idea." He thought to himself. Before he could process that he was resting his head on the other pillow, she grabbed it and pulled it from under his head. "That was my pillow." He said, fake complaining.

"Too bad." She replied with a bit of a giggle.

"This should recline..." He began as he moved to try and reach the lever to unfold the reclining section. As he tried, he quickly found out that his shoulder was not having any of that and he started to move to give himself more reach.

"I'll get it." Sarah replied before he could move. She immediately climbed over him to reach the lever. As she reached for it, she ended up pressing her breasts right into his face as she fumbled with the lever for a couple seconds.

"Woman you're killing me." Chase thought to himself after having processed what was going on. As if her just laying on him hadn't been making his mind wander enough, now she had her boobs in his face.

After a couple seconds, she managed to pull the lever causing the footrest to pop out and the couch section to shift slightly.

"Got it." She announced as she returned to her initial position and began setting up the pillows to hold her phone. After doing so, she turned to look at his face to find him looking at her with a dumbfounded look on his face. "Sorry." She said, failing to hide a smile.

"I feel like you might have done that on purpose." He said teasingly.

He watched as a bit of a smirk showed on her face before she regained control of it. "Well, that's for me to know and you to speculate about." She replied, matching his teasing tone.

Chase rolled his eyes before turning them to her phone. "Mhmm." He said. "Let's watch what you picked out."

"Good idea." Sarah replied, getting back into a comfortable position and starting the comedy episode she'd picked out.

Chase was glad to have something to take his mind off of the events that had been transpiring for the last minute or so. He could feel his erection in his shorts and he was grateful for the fact that she wasn't laying such that she could feel it. The show managed to mostly take his thoughts off of the woman laying on top of him. Or at least it did for the first two thirds of it. Towards the end the subject matter of the jokes shifted to relationships and sex, two subjects he didn't really want to be thinking about knowing that he had a more than decent looking woman laying on top of him. Remembering that she had the hots for him only compounded the issue and also stirred doubts in him about whether he was capable, or even deserving, of being in a relationship.

"Yeah," came a voice in his head, "just wait till she finds out about what you did to your dad. See if she sticks around then."

"Shut up!" He thought to himself, even involuntarily clenching his jaw.

"Are you ok?" Sarah asked, evidently having noticed that something had changed about him.

His brain instantly went haywire and thinking of a response became impossible, so he simply laid there with his jaw locked and body frozen.

"Chase?" Sarah asked.

He still couldn't think of a response, but he did manage to shift his attention to his breathing and force out the breath he had evidently been holding before continuing to focus on breathing.

"Chase..." Sarah repeated, clearly starting to freak out a bit.

He managed to hold out his hand indicating to her that he needed a moment to collect himself. He managed to brute force his way through his raging thoughts and string together a sentence to reply with. "I'm ok." He said, knowing full well he wasn't going to fool her.

"Yeah right." She replied, confirming that she wasn't about to believe him. "What's wrong?" She asked.

"Don't worry about it," he told her, "I'll live."

"I don't care if you'll live," she replied bluntly, "I want to know what's wrong."

Chase ran his hand over his face in frustration. He really didn't want to keep avoiding telling her about his dad, but he also wasn't sure it was a good idea to tell her. Besides, if he told her and she freaked out, they were stuck together at least until she got power restored.

"Chase..." she said, interrupting his thoughts, "you can tell me what's wrong."

"I know I can..." he replied, "I just don't know if it's be a good idea."

"Why's that?" Came her reply.

"I just don't really ever talk about this if I can avoid it." He explained.

"Well, it seems like you need to." Sarah told him. "If it bothers you that much, you need to talk to someone about it."

"I've made it this far." He replied, fully aware that saying that probably wasn't going to convince her.

She sighed in response. "Chase," she replied, "just tell me. What's bothering you?"

Realizing that this time she evidently wasn't going to give up, he finally decided that he would give her what she wanted and if it didn't go well, it was her fault as much as his.

He sighed, taking a moment to collect himself. "I'm just thinking about my dad." He said.

Sarah was clearly a bit stunned and apparently took a moment to process what he'd just said. "What about him?" She eventually asked.

"It's less about him and more about what happened to him..." He admitted.

"Go on." Sarah told him.

"Well..." Chase replied, trying to think of the right words, "he's no longer around... and..."

The two of them sat in silence while he tried to come up with what exactly he wanted to say.

"I... I guess I have to blame myself for it..." He finally managed to word things in the least emotionally charged way he could think of.

He had been deliberately avoiding eye contact, but after a few moments of silence, he finally looked at her face to find her giving him a solemn look. Clearly, he had gotten her attention, but not in such a way as to make her instantly act out. He felt the tension in his mind ease a bit with that realization.

She laid back down on him and worked her arms around him before speaking again. "What happened?" She asked.

He was silent at first, instead simply returning her gesture by putting his arms around her. If he was being honest with himself, he was surprised by how calm he was. If she, or anyone else, had asked that question at almost any other time, he'd have either froze or stormed out. But somehow, here he was calm enough that he could actually tell the story.

"Chase?" Sarah asked, squeezing him a little.

"I'm ok." He replied, returning the gesture. "I'm just trying to think about how to word what I want to say."

Sarah nodded, indicating that she understood, before snuggling against him a bit and letting out a sigh.

Chase took a moment to collect himself. The feeling of her moving against him had an oddly calming effect on his mind but had distracted him from what he was going to tell her. He took a deep breath and collected himself before beginning his story.

"Well," he began, "it had been a couple of days after we finished chopping corn and I got up to help my dad feed the heifers before I got ready for school." As he told the story, the scene started replaying in his head. "I followed him over to the feed room and he flipped on the light and headed inside. We checked the silo to make sure that nothing weird was going on, then we headed back out to the hallway to turn the unloader on. I flipped the breaker for the unloader on and nothing happened. I shut the breaker off, and my dad headed inside the feed room to look at the electrical panel. He opened it up and sent me to get some tools, I got them and gave them to him and we fiddled around with the breaker and the electrical box for a bit to figure out what the problem was."

He took a moment to collect himself again before continuing. "After a few minutes he'd figured out that it was a bad connection and fixed the issue. Then," he paused, "he told me to turn the unloader on and I told him that it was a bad idea but he insisted and, like an idiot I listened to him and the unloader blew a bunch of silo gas down the feed chute and my dad ended up surrounded by it. I panicked and shut the unloader down and ran to find my grandpa to tell him what happened. We went back out to find my dad washing himself off in the milkhouse but my grandpa made him go to the hospital and I went to go get ready for school."