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.
