Toby frowned.
“What?”
“Not you. Birds.”
“Oh.”
“A few.”
“How many?”
“Seventeen.”
Harland nodded.
“Predators?”
“Mostly.”
“Feed conversion?”
“They’re layers.”
“You know what I mean.”
Toby handed him the notebook.
Harland flipped pages.
His eyebrows rose slightly.
“You did all this?”
“Yes.”
“Your father help?”
“With fence.”
“Numbers?”
“No.”
Harland read.
“This labor figure is ugly.”
“I know.”
“You paying yourself?”
“Minimum wage.”
“Should be more.”
Toby looked surprised.
Harland closed the notebook.
“Farm labor doesn’t become free because it belongs to family.”
That lesson stayed.
Harland looked toward the controls.
“You still have untreated rows?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Thought you hated this.”
“I do.”
Toby frowned.
Harland smiled.
“Hating the idea doesn’t mean I want a bad experiment.”
Then he left.
The chemical decision approached.
The orchard’s bank balance did not improve.
Daniel received Harland’s final proposal.
$12,184.
Application materials.
Monitoring support.
Additional insect-control products.
A program designed to reduce the risk of another disastrous harvest.
Daniel placed the papers on the kitchen table.
Toby saw them.
Neither spoke.
The next morning, Toby worked faster.
He knew the decision could not be delayed by hope.
He totaled figures every night.
The first version still looked unfavorable.
Too much labor.
He changed his model.
What if the system used fewer than two hundred hens?
What if rotation area increased?
What if he reduced purchased feed by allowing more orchard forage without underfeeding?
What if shelters improved?
But he stopped himself.
Those were future possibilities.
Daniel needed current numbers.
Toby could not justify this season based on improvements he had not built.
So he returned to actual results.
Egg income.
Reduced cleanup hours.
Reduced mowing in certain sections.
Reduced insect counts for specific reachable pests.
Value of manure?
He hesitated.
Too uncertain.
Did not include it fully.
He used only a conservative estimate for reduced fertilizer work where soil tests later showed increased available nutrients.
Daniel noticed.
“You could make this look better.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Then it’s useless.”
Daniel smiled.
That answer frightened him and made him proud at the same time.
On the evening before Daniel needed to call Harland, Toby brought the notebook to the kitchen.
“I don’t think we should buy the full program.”
Daniel stopped eating.
Rachel looked at both of them.
Daniel said, “Why?”
“Not because chickens replace it.”
“Good.”
“They don’t.”
Daniel waited.
Toby opened a page.
“I think we can use less.”
“Harland’s not offering less.”
“Then ask him.”
Daniel laughed.
“He’s going to love that.”
“Some pests still need treatment.”
“Yes.”
“But the pressure isn’t the same everywhere.”
“You know that from six weeks?”
“No.”
Toby shook his head.
“I know enough to say the whole orchard isn’t responding the same.”
He pointed toward sections.
“Block Four controls still show high pressure.”
Another.
“Managed rows lower for the pests that spend time near surface litter.”
Another.