$749.
Then she added labor at twenty-five dollars an hour.
Net after labor:
$586.50.
She stared.
Better than her repair-shop wage.
One job proved nothing.
The second job came from Mrs. Landry telling her brother.
Then a storm-cleanup job.
Then a landowner with six acres of firewood trees.
Then a maple producer who needed a washed-out trail reopened and several fallen stems removed before sap season.
Small jobs.
Jobs larger contractors hated.
That became the business.
Hannah did not understand it immediately.
At first she kept trying to get timber contracts.
Traditional logging.
Volume.
Skid logs to landing.
Sell wood.
But new machines dominated larger jobs for good reasons.
Grapple skidders were faster.
Safer in many applications.
Better for production.
Operators sat in better cabs.
Hydraulics handled bunches efficiently.
Hannah could not compete by pretending 1980s technology was superior to modern equipment.
So she stopped competing on speed.
She competed on mobilization.
Her skidder was paid for.
Her truck was old.
Her overhead was low.
She could take a two-acre cleanup job.
A twelve-tree selective harvest.
Storm salvage.
Fence-line clearing.
Small timber stand improvement.
Firewood extraction.
Farm woodlots.
Projects where a $300,000 machine needed too many productive hours just to justify arriving.
Hannah named the business Mercer Woodlot Services.
Mark hated it.
“Sounds like you rake leaves.”
“What would you call it?”
“Mercer Logging.”
“I don’t only log.”
“Mercer Forestry.”
“I’m not a forester.”
“Mercer Skidder Girl.”
Hannah stared.
Mark laughed.
“Woodlot Services is fine.”
The first winter nearly ended the business anyway.
The winch cable failed.
Not during a pull.
That was fortunate.
Hannah was spooling out cable on flat ground when a damaged section kinked and separated.
She stared at the broken ends.
Then sat in the snow.
A replacement cable cost $1,740.
She had known.
Knowing did not make writing the check easier.
Dale Bishop heard about it.
Of course he did.
Hannah saw him at the farm supply store.
He looked at the cable spool in her cart.
“Thought that thing was making money.”
“It is.”
“Looks like it’s spending.”
“All equipment spends.”
“My machine came with good cable.”
“What did your machine cost?”
Dale smiled.
“Three hundred and sixteen thousand.”
Hannah stared.
“Congratulations.”
“Financing.”
“How much a month?”
His smile tightened.
“None of your business.”
“Exactly.”
She pushed the cart away.
Dale called:
“You’re what now, five grand into an eleven-hundred-dollar machine?”
“Closer to six.”
He laughed.
Hannah turned.
“Still less than your sales tax.”
A man beside Dale laughed.
Hannah left before he could answer.
The new cable transformed the machine.
Not its power.
Her trust in it.
She could use full winch length.
Work farther from trails.