Chapter 1

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I'm driving to the county house on my tractor to help Dad move hay. It's 43 degrees out here and going down a hill driving 23 miles an hour does not help. At all, especially when you only have a light jacket that the wind cuts right through. I see the gate that leads into the county house, so I slow down and pull in. The county house is an old red-bricked building that's covered in trees and weeds and is falling down on the inside. I stop and my Dad walks up to me."Where am I going?" I ask.

"Well just scoot over and I'll put the hay on the wagon."

"Ok," I say having done this a million times. I move over and sit on the covering of the wheel, and he climbs up and sits in the seat. As Dad drives the tractor around the building I zone out. I think about how I spend my weekends. You see I'm a farm girl, but I don't live on a farm. You might be thinking how that works. Well you see all of my life I've come up to the farm on the weekends to help my family with the cows. We still do, you might be thinking that I'm lame and have no friends but to be honest it's not like that at all. The farm is my escape, it's my paradise. It's where I think about things, heck even my favorite reading spot is here. It's like nothing else exists, it just me, the world, and my animals.

I come back to earth when my dad waves his hand in front of my face. I realize he isn't on the tractor anymore, but standing beside it. "Sorry Dad, what'd you need?"

"Josephine stop daydreaming. Now I need you to pull your tractor forward to get the bale spike out of the hay bale. Think you can do that?"

"Yes Dad, sorry." I slowly pull my tractor forward and stop whenever I'm a few feet away from the bale. My Dad hollers at me and says,"We're going to go to the Southwest corner of the pasture in front of Jared's house to feed the cows this hay."

I nod my head in response and he tries to start up his tractor on his third try it finally turns over. We head to the pasture. We drive down the road out of the county house going north until I reach the crossroad and then I stop. I look both ways and turn to the right. I go up and down a few more hills until I have to turn to the North to get into the pasture.

After I pull in Dad gets off his tractor and shuts the gate. He then takes his tractor further in, and like always I follow. Once we get in far enough he gets off his tractor and like the last time I move and he drives. As we're taking off the first bale of hay I start to laugh because this is the farm I know and love, it's so peaceful here, even with the cows mooing all around me. We have a herd of about 30 head, all Angus, we just raise them.

We then take off the other two bales of hay and spread them out. He climbs off of my tractor and gets back on his own now. We head to the farm house and I put my tractor in the shed, as does my father. We go in the two-story farm house. The first floor of the farmhouse has a half-bath, kitchen, dining room, living room, recreation room and a master bedroom. The master bedroom has a set of bunk beds, a single bed, walk-in closet, three dressers, a couch and a bathroom. On the second floor there are two bedrooms, one for the guys and one for the girls, and a common room. Both the boy's and girl's room have a wall of beds there are two singles on top and two fulls on the bottom, a dresser and a bathroom. The common room is an open room that the stairs lead into, it has 3 couches, a table, a half-bath, a movie cabinet, a VCR, and a Blu-ray player.

I go upstairs into the common room then go to the room on the right, the girls room, and grab my standard bag of clothes and necessities, then I go back downstairs and grab Dad's bag out of the master bedroom. While I do this Dad turns off everything. After we make sure everything is off we leave because it's dinner time. We always go to Grandma's for dinner and to catch up.

As we're up pulling out of the driveway to go to Grandma's I think I see a pair of eyes looking at me through the cornfield across the street, but then they disappear. I guess I just imagined them. Dad slowly pulls out of the driveway and we make the three mile journey into town. When we get to town we go to Casey's to get pizza, after grabbing two beef slices and a sweet tea I go with my dad to the counter so he can pay for our food.

We then get into the truck and drive the rest of the way to Grandma's. It doesn't take that long considering its only like three or four blocks away. When we arrive Lassie, the dog next door, starts barking. I look around considering that she's used to us and our vehicle by now. I wonder what made her bark. As I'm looking around I think I see those eyes again, I blink and they're gone. I need to get my eyes checked. "Come one Josephine don't let all the warm air out," I hear dad tell me. I hurry up and walk inside.

Grandma's house or the town house as we've dubbed it has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a den, a family room, and a laundry room. I walk in through the back door with my Dad following me and go to the first door on the left, the laundry room.

"Hey Grandma we're here,"I yell down the hall leading into the den as I'm taking my boots off.

"Josephine, how are you?" She asks me.

"Normal I guess." I tell her as I come down the hall to the den where we have the dining room table.

"How's school going?" Grandpa asks whenever I sit down in my chair at the table.

"School is school. " I reply short and sweet.

"Do you have a boyfriend yet?" Grandpa asks when I start eating.

The only thing I can do is try not to choke on the pizza in my mouth. "No, Grandpa, I don't." I say to him as soon as I can breathe again.

"It's a good thing too." Dad chimes in.

I just stick my tongue out at him. It's not that I'd mind one it's just that the boys in my school are idiots, and if I find one good enough to have a crush on he never likes me back.

"How's Juliana, and Jasmine?" Grandma asks us referencing to my big sister, and my niece.

"They're doing fine," I reply before Dad can say anything.

"How's Jake's football season going?" Grandpa asks wondering about my brother who is a junior this year.

"He's doing really good. It must be the PE class he's in." Dad replies.

"So Jason, how's work and Janelle?" Grandma asks dad about his job at the lumber yard and my mom.

"We've been busy lately. And Janelle's doing good too."

After that we are left to eat, and watch the baseball game Grandma has turned the TV to.

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