“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Means you still expect machines to behave.”
Avery threw a wrench at the workbench.
January also brought the first request from another farmer.
Not Frank.
A woman named Rachel Boone who ran twelve acres of pears and apples twenty miles away.
She called.
“I want to see your setup.”
Avery hesitated.
“Why?”
“Because I spent eight thousand dollars cleaning dropped fruit after hail.”
“Okay.”
“And because my husband says your chicken thing is stupid.”
Avery smiled.
“That improves your credibility.”
Rachel visited Saturday.
She asked good questions.
Not miracle questions.
Bird health.
Fencing.
Predators.
Food safety.
Tree age.
Soil condition.
She brought her own notebook.
At the end she said:
“I don’t want five hundred chickens.”
“Good.”
“I don’t recommend five hundred unless you enjoy emotional collapse.”
“How many?”
“For twelve acres?”
Avery thought.
“Depends on rotation.”
“Start small.”
“Maybe seventy-five.”
Rachel nodded.
“Where do I buy them?”
Avery stared.
“You’re actually doing it?”
“If my husband laughs again, I’m buying a hundred.”
Avery laughed.
By February, three farmers had visited.
Then six.
Frank did not.
He called twice.
Asked indirect questions.
Never admitted interest.
Avery enjoyed withholding answers just enough to punish him without actually being unhelpful.
“Bird density?” he asked once.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Come visit.”
“I know what chickens look like.”
“Then you don’t need me.”
He hung up.
Called again four days later.
March changed the orchard.
Snow melted.
Soil warmed.
The first real post-winter sampling began.
Dr. Ramirez returned with Priya.
They set traps.
Measured emergence.
Avery tried not to hover.
She failed.
Three weeks later the preliminary report arrived.
She opened it at 5:12 in the morning because she could not sleep.
The treated blocks showed significantly reduced overwintering codling moth larval presence in sampled habitat zones.
Apple maggot results were less clear.
Weed biomass reduced in several paddocks but variable.
Soil mineral nitrogen elevated in high-use bird areas.
Not uniformly.
No evidence yet of dangerous nutrient accumulation under the rotation used, though long-term monitoring was recommended.
Windfall fruit removal dramatically higher.
Fuel and mowing lower.
The report used cautious language.
Avery read it like poetry.
She called Earl at 5:19.
He answered angrily.
“Who died?”
“Nobody.”
“Then why are you calling?”
“Forty-three percent.”
“What?”
“Codling moth larvae.”
Silence.
Then:
“Good?”
“Lower in treated sample zones.”
“Good.”
“Yes.”
“Can I sleep?”
“No.”
She drove to his house with printed pages.
He made coffee.
By seven, they were in the orchard.
Avery stood between rows that had looked doomed five months earlier.
The trees were not magically healthy.
Some remained weak.
Several needed replacement.
But buds were swelling.
Life returned because trees did that when conditions allowed.
Avery looked down.
The ground beneath them had become part of the business, not merely the surface holding the trees up.