5. DEAN
Chapter five
DEAN
CHASING WATERFALLS
Dinner with Preston was relatively easy. Easier than I’ve ever found talking to him in the past and I don’t know why. I was a nervous wreck when I was getting ready to meet him, but then Chewie got into the pool, and I had to rush around with Skye getting him out and locked back up in his enclosure. Then it was a rush to get here, the Miller tractor was taking up more than half the road and only crawling along. I finally hit a straight part of road I could overtake him and then the time from when I parked to taking a bite of the most disgusting burger I’ve ever eaten is a blur.
Hopefully, I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself.
“So what time is Preston getting here?” Nial asks as we start leading in the first of our cows for their afternoon milking. Gordon is waiting behind the herd to make sure he’s not separated from them or left out of the barn.
“Should be here any minute. He thinks it will be easier tagging the herd while they’re in the barn milking. We won’t have time to input all their data, but as long as we’ve got the tags set up with their tattoos and names in the system, we can add the extra info in later.”
“Sounds good to me. Need me to do anything?”
“Maybe get Connor up here to help with the girls so I can focus on the tagging. I had a read through the literature last night, too. If this thing does what it says it does, it will make everything a lot easier. I’ve left the flyers and that on the desk in the office for you to have a look at.” I glance over at Skye, who’s coaxing the girls into their stalls at the end of the row. “You’ll need to get familiar with the app, too. So after Nial is done, he’ll give you the info.”
“No problem, I’m good with apps. I’m sure it will be pretty easy to follow.”
“For your generation, sure. Everything we used to do manually is an app now.”
“Yep, including dating, did you see someone from a few towns over set up a Country Bumkins app for outback hookups?”
“No,” Nial and I both reply, though while mine is a stern no, his is a more excited one as he pulls out his phone and starts tapping away.
“That’s exactly what we need out here. I wonder who’s on it.”
“There is time for that later. Go fix up your girls already.”
“I’m just texting Connor,” he replies but turns his phone to the side so I can’t see what he’s really up to. “Have you told Perry?”
“Nope, I’m going to wait until it’s all set up and I know what I’m doing before I bring it up.”
“Good plan.”
Perry is old school, and while he doesn’t mind technology, like the satellite dish that lets us pick up every sports channel in the country, he isn’t the biggest fan of when tech starts to encroach on the way he’s been doing things for fifty years. I get it, change can be scary. But this app has the potential to make all of our lives easier and help keep our herd healthy and he’ll be up for that, I’m sure.
Preston swings open the barn door, a big smile spreading across his face when he sees us.
“Ready for me?” he asks.
“Some of us have been ready for years,” Nial replies, and thankfully, it gains a confused frown from Preston. Fucking younger brothers. Never confide in a younger sibling about a crush, even if it was a decade ago, because you can guarantee that same younger brother is going to take every opportunity to make things weird.
“Sorry if you’ve been waiting on me,” he says, but I shake my head.
“We’re just hooking the girls up now.”
“I’ll start preparing the tags then, and we can get started.”
“Sounds good,” I reply, and when Connor arrives, I leave him to finish my row while I go grab the tablet to bring up the app.
“So you have time to read through how it all works yet?” Preston asks, and I nod.
“Seems pretty simple. I added the app to my phone, too, but the tablet screen is bigger, so it should help get things done a bit faster through the set up.”
“Good thinking. Okay, so we’re going with names and tattoos, right?”
“Right. If you want to tag the same ear as the tattoo, I brought in the antiseptic spray we use when we tattoo.
“Great. The good thing about these tags is they come sterile, too, so as soon as we clean the area, we can tag and not be too worried about cross-contamination. Hey, depending on how well they stay on the cows, you might be able to stop tattooing all together.”
“Maybe. I wanted to a while back. We know our herd pretty well, but because they’re all registered, they have to have a permanent ID.”
“The new sensor might be able to be that, but I’m getting ahead of myself. This is a trial. They want to test how the data comes in, if there are any gaps in the info, if you as the users find anything that is complicated or frustrating to use. They basically want to know your honest thoughts on every aspect, so even though this is for an old friend of mine, don’t feel like you can’t be honest.”
I plug the scanner into the port on the tablet, and then Preston reads out the first tattoo.
“B, B, two, four,” he says, and I scan the pack of the first tag and peel it open so that he can connect the applicator without touching the sterile tag itself.
“B, B, two, four, AKA, Holly,” I say, punching in the info on the screen.
“Okay, next, B, B, six, seven,” Preston reads, and we keep going like that until all the cows and Gordon are tagged. He started to kick up when he saw the girls getting something he wasn’t. It was easier for me to get Preston to tag him than deal with his tantrum. The default in the system is cattle, but I was able to select other from the drop down and input Dumb ass under species and then Gordon under name.
“Hey, maybe they will get good data out of him, too, they can use to sell it to donkey farmers.” I laugh, and we let these girls all go and bring in the next lot.
It takes a while, but we finally get all the herd tagged and in the system. Preston brought his tranq gun for the bulls, and after they’re all tagged, too, we leave the guys to finish cleaning up all the milking hoses ready for tomorrow.
“I’ve still got to feed the chickens, and check the pool for Chewie,” I say, and Preston closes the door to his van.
“Cool, I’ll come for a walk if that’s okay?”
“Sure.”
“Nice. I haven’t seen the pool yet.”
“It’s my favorite thing we’ve done since we took over.”
I grab the feed for the chickens first. They are like little fuzzy clocks, always able to tell when I’m even a few minutes late with their dinner. The naked chickens are out, hovering by the door to the coop.
“Will just be a minute unless you want to come in and help collect the eggs?”
“No, thanks, I’ll wait out here. Those ones kind of freak me out.”
“The chickens?”
“Yeah, I mean, they look like they ran away just before being tossed in the oven.”
“You’re a vegetarian. That thought should make you love them.”
“Nope. They are seriously weird.”
“Well then, they fit in here, don’t they?” I say, and I toss the feed over the ground. They all rush to eat, except Little T. He’s going the opposite direction. It’s funny how chickens all have their own personality. I guess on large chicken farms they wouldn’t get a chance to notice, but with only nineteen of them, we’ve picked up on their uniqueness. I drop a handful of feed right in front of Little T, and then when she’s eating, I open the back of the coop and collect the eggs.
“That’s super clever,” Preston says, coming around the back of the coop to get a better look at the rear door we set up.
“It’s so much easier this way, especially for the ones who like to nest right at the back of their boxes like this one,” I say, pulling two eggs from a nest that is right on the edge.
“Okay, all done. What do you want to see first?”
“The pool.”
“Okay, you got it.”
I set the basket of eggs on the post by the path to grab on my way back, but knowing the guys, one of them will spot it and take it up to the house before I can.
“So why’d you decide to put in a pool?” Preston asks as we walk slowly along the path.
“Jealousy,” I reply, and he laughs.
“What? You can’t be serious.”
“Yep. I was so jealous of all the kids who used to spend those scorching summer days at the falls swimming all day, while I was here working the ranch. I always thought the clearing up ahead would be the perfect place for a pond. Nearly had Gramps convinced to let me dig one out, too.”
We round the corner, and he spots the fencing first.
“Wait, it’s fenced. Then how is Chewie getting in?”
“No idea. I swear that lama is a magician.”
“Wow, this is amazing,” he says, resting his head on his arms as he leans on the fence rail. “I love how you have the natural rock, too.”
“Some of it is fake,” I admit, and he squints, his gaze moving over all the stone.
“Really?”
“Yep, the cave at the end is fake. I wanted a mini waterfall for the pool and couldn’t use real stones for that, so this was the next best thing.”
“You can’t even tell.”
“Yeah. Now you see why it’s my favorite new addition.”
“Do you swim much?”
“Not as much as I’d like. It’s hard with all the work and then the guests.”
“I guess that’s the same for me. I love being a vet, but I always thought I’d have a bunch of animals of my own by now, too.”
“Why don’t you?” I ask, gesturing towards the path, and we continue our walk towards the cabins.
“I’m not home as much as I thought I would be, so it wouldn’t be fair to a pet to have it cooped up in my apartment all day.”
“You could have it down in the clinic with you, though, right?”
“I thought I could maybe do that, too, but it just hasn’t happened yet. Look at you, though, doing all the things here you always wanted to do. The cabins were a great idea. Is that one there?” he asks, pointing towards where Cabin One can just be seen through the trees.
“Yep, one of twelve with three more planned. Would have been four, but we put Atlas’s trailer in that spot. It’s the furthest from everything else.”
“Atlas doesn’t like being near the main house or the guests?”
I laugh. “He’s a nudist, so it’s more we don’t want the guests near him out of work hours. I’ve told him to keep the nudity to his trailer, but he’ll step out with his lower half wrapped in a sheet on a breezy day and think nothing of it.”
“Right, I heard he was trying to get you to agree to a naked retreat weekend thing or something, wasn’t he?”
“He’s been trying since I hired him. No way will Beaker Brothers ever be hosting a nudist retreat. Gramps would have my guts for garters.”
“I guess a guy can dream,” he replies, shoving his hands into his back pockets and looking up at the darkening sky as he steps in a circle. “I love the sunsets out here,” he says, and I follow his gaze.
“It’s one of my favorite things about Bellerelle, too. I doubt anywhere in the world has a sky quite like that. Well, you’d know.”
“You’re right,” he says, glancing my way. “Nowhere in the world is better than right here.”