Page 134 of When We Were Us
Then, she’s on her feet, that sexy smirk back in place. “So, you gonna fix my leak or what, cowboy?”
“Fuckin’ tease,” I grunt out and make a grab for her waist, but she dances back and just out of reach with a laugh.
Swiping a screwdriver off the table, she points it at me. “First, you work. Then, you play.”
I hit her with a smirk of my own. “You’re gonna pay for that later.”
“Counting on it.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
hank
It’s beenone incredible week of waking up to Wrenley every morning and falling asleep with her pressed against me every night. We spent the first night after the festival at her place, but every night since, we’ve been at the cabin. After our conversation about her moving into the cabin with me, it just felt right. Even though it’s small, and there isn’t room for much, it’s comfortable.
Every morning after I shower, I come out to her sprawled out like a starfish, snoring like a banshee. And after just about falling out of her tiny bed that first night, I can’t lie and say I don’t like her in my bed. I fucking love it.
This morning, when I mentioned I was spending the first half of the day checking fence lines, she’d asked if she could come along. Since we’d be gone the majority of the morning and into lunch, we made sandwiches: turkey for me and peanut butter and jelly for her.
Now, she’s laying on her stomach while propped on her elbows on the wool blanket she brought along, looking out over empty pasture. Her legs are bent at the knees and her red Chucks are sticking up in the air, with herfeet crossed at the ankles. I hand her sandwich to her and unwrap my own.
“So, once we make sure all the fencing is ok, you’ll move the cattle from where they are now to here?”
I nod from where I’m leaning against the tree we’re sitting under. “Not all the cattle, but the fifty or so in that cell we saw coming out this way.” I take a bite of my sandwich, resting my other hand on the back of her thigh. I can’t seem to keep my hands off this woman, even when we’re eating and talking shop. I’m obsessed with the feel of her and just having her near me.
“And what’s it called again?”
“Rotational grazing. Basically, you take the whole surface area of pastureland and break it down into smaller paddocks. Moving the animals frequently gives the land time to rest. It also improves long-term pasture quality, which is better for the livestock in the long run.”
“And how do you know when to move them?” Wren asks, glancing back at me over her shoulder as she chews her PB&J.
I bob my head from side to side. “It depends on a lot of factors. What season we’re in, how hot it is, how many cattle are in each cell, and what kind of shape the forage is in. Stuff like that.”
She nods, taking another bite of her sandwich.
Setting my sandwich down,I reach out to grab a reed of tall grass and pull the ends through my fingers. Then, I lean forward and hold my palm out to her. “This is future seed. So, the next time the cows come through, they step on them and push them into the ground, it’s kind of like building your own seed bank in the soil as you rotate the cows through it.”
“This grass is the same in every pasture?” she asks.
“Mostly.” I pull up another reed. “This pasture that we’re in right now kind of got away from us a little bit this year, since we had a really cold, wet spring. So, we’ve got a lot of grasses in here that we normally don't have this time of year. This one’s an early season ryegrass that typically comes up a lot earlier. Once we move the cattle in, we’ll probably let them graze this almost completely down.”
“All the pastureland is just for grazing?”
“We also have land that we use strictly to grow what we’ll need to feed the cattle through the winter, as well as some for resale.”
“I saw that trough over there but it’s empty. So, how do you water the cattle?”
“There’s a buried mainline. All the troughs have a float valve hooked to a hose.”
“There’s a lot more to it than I imagined,” she says, taking in the land before us.
“Yeah, more than most people imagine, for sure.”
“Lots of work.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I shrug. But I’m used to hard work. Wouldn’t know what to do with myself otherwise. “Moving the cattle in small groups like this goes pretty quick once you get started.”
“No wonder you never sleep.”
