Forever's Embrace (Forever In Luck Series Book 2) (13 page)

She
returned his smile, then came to him, wrapping her arms around his middle and
resting her head on his pec. Staring up at him, she said, “So, you’re a poo
professional.”

“Should
be. It’s Dairy Farming 101. Been stuck in that class ever since I was old enough
to carry a shovel.”

She
laughed, then moved a hand up and patted him on the back. “Stuck with honorable
mention, when you deserve first place. Well, I give you an A-plus, plus, and
declare you winner of first prize.” Then standing on her tiptoes, she gave him
the sweetest kiss, as her hands slid up his arms. Whispering in his ear, she
said, “It explains these,” then she rubbed her thumbs over his biceps, “and I
love
these.”

She’d
just thrown a log on his fire and thrown open the dampers. His temperature shot
through the roof as he internally combusted. Snapping his hands out, he pulled
her hips in tight against him, then wrapped his arms tight around her. His
inner caveman danced with glee. “Listen up buttercup, trust me when I tell you
you’re playing with fire, because I’m ablaze right now.”

Nuzzling
his neck, she answered, “Don’t need to take your word for it, I can feel it.
It’s amazing what us chemists can do with some raw elements and a flame, isn’t
it? So believe me when I tell you, I’m definitely playing with your mind.” Then
she quickly pushed back from him, merriment dancing in her eyes.

“Hey,
get back here! I was enjoying first prize, I won it and I want it!” He reached
out to grab her and pull her back, but she danced out of his reach and laughed at
his frantic attempts to catch her.

Laughing
more, she shook her head as he came towards her, then skipped out of his reach.
“What do you do with all this poo?” she asked, hopscotching her way around the
evidence.

He
frowned. “I don’t want to talk about poo,” he groused. “I want to go back to
what we were doing.”

“Dairy
Farming 101, focus, I want to learn. I love to learn,” she answered.

He
stopped and laughed, then laughed some more, and then more still. Hell, he
nearly fell on the floor he was laughing so hard.

Looking
at him like he’d lost his mind, she said, “What’s so funny about wanting to
learn things?”

Coming
up to her, he put his arm around her shoulders and looked down at her. “Trust
me when I tell you, you were definitely in for an education, and I’d be sure
you enjoyed that lesson.”

She
blushed at his words, obviously understanding his intention.

“You’re
beautiful when you blush, bebis.”

More
blushing. “I, ah, need to, ah, work on my prerequisites for that class,” she
said in a shy whisper. “I’d hate to fail that one.”

Squeezing
her shoulder and kissing her on the temple, he reassured her, “Not possible,
not even remotely possible. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Fanny.”

Moving
down the corridor and crossing into the next wing, they exited a side door and
walked over to an adjacent building. While standing outside, he explained, “The
manure comes across to this building where it enters the bedding recovery unit,
or Fanny as we call it. It separates the slurry into its two basic forms,
solids and liquid, via a large press. The liquid is drained off and makes its
way to a lagoon out back for later use, while the solids are dried in a large
tumbler that runs twenty-four seven. It provides us with all our bedding
material, and is ninety-nine percent pathogen free.”

“So,
you’re recycling poo?”

He
nodded. “You got it. In the past, it used to be a huge pile somewhere on the
farm, and we’d turn it from time to time, letting it compost for use as
fertilizer on the fields when needed. We had more than we could ever use, and
it was pretty much a loss. Further, we used to have to purchase bedding
materials to augment what we were able to produce on our own, but with rising
costs on sand, sawdust, wood shavings, hay, and straw, we had to look for
alternatives, and manure is the one thing we have in abundance around here. So
we’re trying this, and it’s paid for itself already in under four years. It’s
Nik’s deal really. He’s into the overall functioning of the farm, not to
mention he has an inventors mind and the skill to see things to fruition.”

“Hmmm,
very interesting,” she replied. “I want to see how this works.”

He
grinned. “You sure about that?”

She
nodded.

“Okay,
if you say so. Take a deep breath, and we’ll head in. It’s stinky and noisy, so
we can talk when we come out. Ready?”

She
nodded.

Emerging
several minutes later, Jake looked at Jules. “Well?”

She
stood thinking. “The two vats in the floor?”

“Filled
with slurry awaiting processing.”

“End
result virtually sterile, you say?”

He
nodded. “Yep, ninety-nine percent pathogen free, better than any of the
traditional bedding materials we’d been using, not to mention cheaper. We’ve
seen a reduction in mastitis, and an improvement in leg and hoof health. The
cows love it because it a fine granule, making it soft and comfy. Which is
basic to Dairy 101, happy healthy cows produce more milk. Come, I’ll show you.”

Walking
back through the barn, down one of the long corridors, through the milking
parlor and past the carousel, they entered another long wing.

“In
addition to the four main wings, there are two more smaller ones, this one
here, and another one a straight shot across the barn. That one is where we
keep cows showing signs of sickness, this one is the maternity ward, expectant
moms to your left, baby pens to the right, and group pens beyond them down to
the end. As you can see, our mama’s to be love their comfy beds, as they are
choosing to be here rather than outside. They get plenty of good feed and clean
water, and are essentially pampered princesses.”

Jules
chuckled. “Of the whole entire farm, this is where you like to be the most,
isn’t it?

Jake
took in the surroundings. “I spend a fair amount of time here.” Taking her
hand, they walked down the aisle, coming to one of the calving pens. “Here’s a
sweet little girl you’ll be interested in. Its Annabelle’s calf.”

A
little black and white head popped out of its pen at the sound of his voice,
then pranced over to him looking for his attention. Soon all the calves in the
vicinity were calling and looking for him.

Jules
started giggling, then called out, “Daddy’s home! She’s so cute. Can I touch
her?”

He
nodded. “Sure, she loves being scratched behind the ears.”

Reaching
out, Jules touched the calf. “She’s so soft! Hey sweetie pie, aren’t you
delightful.”

“You
can name her if you want.”

Jules
gasped. “Really? Can I? I’d love to!”

“Go
for it.”

Just
then the calf’s nose butted her hand, sniffed and huffed, then pranced off,
running in a circle before coming to stand in front of her again.

“She’s
soooo cute, she’s playing with me. Let’s see, since she’s adorable, likes to
flit around, and is Annabelle’s, I think I’d like to name her Tinkerbelle. Or
is that one already taken?” she asked, looking at him with batting lashes and a
huge smile.

He
chuckled. Tinkerbelle wasn’t the only one playing, he thought. “Nope, and we’ve
never had a Tinkerbelle, so it works fine. It suits her. Good job. Let’s go log
it in the ledger and we’ll finish the tour.”

Stopping
in the farm’s office, located near the main entrance of the barn, Jake went to
a shelf unit and pulled out a ledger, wrote in some information, and put it
back on the shelf.

“What
are all these?” Jules asked, looking over the shelves holding numerous books.

“Ledgers,
log books, data on the farm. Nik wants to get it all on computer, but it’s kind
of hard because dad isn’t interested. He likes the old way, says he’s
electronically challenged, and that hell will freeze over before he goes
computerized. So we’re working on him, trying to get him to learn. We just got
him to agree to carry a cell phone in the last year, so its baby steps around
here.”

Nodding
to a large map on the wall, Jake said, “That’s a map of Luck Township and the
Village of Luck.” Stepping to it, he pointed, “This is where the farm is. We
own all the land outlined in red. Most of Luck is relatively flat, but the
northern part, where we live, has some rolling hills. The hillier parts we use
mostly for grazing, the flatter areas are haying pastures and farmland for feed
crops. Throughout the property, unto the Gandy Dancer Trail here on the western
edge, are various patches of forested land that Kris and Nik like to hunt on.”

“Wow!
That’s quite a bit of land. How long has your family been here?”

“Since
the mid-eighteen hundreds,” he answered, as he took her hand and led her out of
the office, heading towards the main door. “They emigrated from Denmark, we’re
Danish mostly, with a little German and Norwegian mixed in.”

“Wait,
you didn’t show me what’s down that hall,” she said, looking back the way they
came.

Not
going there, he thought, no way. So, he simply smiled and shook his head as he
kept walking. “It’s nothing, just a bunch of storage.”

“Oh,
okay,” she answered, following him.

Stepping
outside, he pointed and said, “That building over there is the shop where we
work on the equipment and do repairs. All those buildings over there house
equipment and such, and this larger one by the silo, is the feed shed where we
store the various food supplies needed to sustain the herd. That big piece of
equipment next to it is equivalent to a kitchen food processor. We dump in the
various feed materials and let it mix, then we haul it to the barn and feed the
animals. So that’s it, that’s the farm.”

She
snuggled up to him and looked into his eyes. “Thank you. It’s a very nice farm.
You and your family have every right to be proud of it. Now what’s on the
agenda?”

“Ice
fishing. We’re going to see if this city girl can catch dinner.”

*****

Riding
along in Jakes pickup, Jules was giddy. Clutching her bait bucket full of
shiner minnows, she studied her very own fishing license. If she was in Chicago
right now, she’d be sitting at a desk sorting and analyzing mountains of data,
making inferences, developing hypotheses, and proposing studies. Gosh, what a
difference life in the country was compared to the big city, with its zillions
of people all going about their business, doing busy things, often times
without fulfillment or value.

 
She loved the farm, all of it, everything
about it. It was amazing, and the scientist in her wanted to go beyond the
macroview of the tour and see its operation on a microscopic level. With
rapidly advancing technologies, she saw several areas that could be improved,
increasing their efficiency and the bottom line.

Peeking
in her bucket, she watched the little minnows dart around. “What kinds of fish
are we going to catch?”

Jake
glanced over. “We hope for walleye, but panfish would work too.”

“What
are panfish?”

“Smaller
fish, like bluegills, crappies, and sunfish.”

She
peeked in the minnow bucket again. “What lake are we going to?”

“Bone
Lake, it’s only ten minutes or so from the house. Kris keeps an ice house
there, so we’re going to use it. Mine’s up north at the cabin.”

Jake
turned and headed down an incline, passing a sign that said “Public Access,”
then went over a series of bumps and they were on the lake. Rolling down their
windows, he told her to take off her seatbelt. Doing what he told her to, her
heart started to pound. She quickly put her license down and grabbed the door
handle. “Um, Jake, is it safe?” she swallowed hard. “I mean, ah, shouldn’t we
walk, maybe?”

“Relax,
you’re safe. I’ve got you. You do know how to swim though, right? Just in
case.”

“Jake!”
she said in a panic, “Take us back, I don’t want to fish!”

Driving
on, he laughed and laughed.

Hugging
her bait bucket, she glared at him. Her heart was about to jump from her chest
and he was teasing her. Then he pulled up to a little shack of a building. That
was the ice house? Why her bedroom closet looked to be bigger. “How long are we
going to be here?” she asked warily.

Still
getting his jollies from her discomfort, he smirked and said, “Till you catch
enough for dinner. Wait here while I go in and turn on the heater. We’ll give
it a chance to heat up a bit before we go in.”

“What?
No way!” she practically shrieked. Shaking her head adamantly, she said, “I’m
not staying out here alone. What if this thing falls in? You’d never find me.
No way! I’m coming with you.” She grabbed her stuff and suddenly had a thought.
“Wait! You have a heater going when you’re on ice? I want to see this heater
thingy. Quit laughing at me!”

His
head had fallen against the back of the seat, he was laughing so hard. She
smacked him in the arm. “I’m frightened to death and you’re laughing at me!”