The flood repairs continued around them.
Fence work came first because cattle respected memory only until grass on the other side looked better. Eli and Norah spent two long days resetting posts where the ground had dried enough to hold them. They stretched new woven wire, patched three old sections, and replaced a gate hinge with one salvaged from the equipment shed.
Norah's hands blistered beneath her gloves.
Eli noticed on the second afternoon. "You can stop."
"You didn't."
"I'm sixty-eight. I'm supposed to make bad choices from habit."
"I'm fifteen. I'm supposed to make them from confidence."
He looked at her for several seconds.
"That's unfortunately accurate."
She kept working.
The tractor problem grew worse before it improved. The old transmission slipped under load and began making a grinding sound Eli could no longer pretend was harmless. He parked the machine rather than risk destroying the rest of the drivetrain. Without it, moving feed, grading the washed lane, and handling logs became slower and more dependent on neighbors.
Norah saw the pressure in her grandfather even when he refused to describe it.
Bills accumulated on the kitchen table beneath a ceramic salt shaker.
Feed invoice.
Fence wire.
Diesel.
Veterinary account.
Replacement culvert pipe.
Eli moved them into different stacks without making the total smaller.
One night Norah found him at the table after midnight with a pencil and calculator.
"How bad?"
He did not look up. "Go to bed."
"That means bad."
"That means you're fifteen."
"I'm the fifteen-year-old who stopped you from selling the logs for five hundred dollars."
Eli set the pencil down.
Norah immediately regretted the phrasing. It sounded like accusation instead of fact.
"Sorry."
He rubbed his face. "You don't need to be sorry."
"I shouldn't talk like I own the decision."
"No. But you earned the right to understand it."
He turned the paper toward her.
The numbers were not catastrophic. That was almost worse. Catastrophe could justify panic. These were the ordinary thin margins that killed farms quietly.
They could repair the road enough for the feed truck if Aaron lent them his grader attachment.
They could postpone repainting the barn.
They could reduce some expenses.
But the tractor could not remain broken through hay season.
"Five thousand fixes most of this," Norah said.
"Yes."
"If Marcus is offering five, the best logs are worth more than five."
"Probably."
"How much more?"
"That's what we don't know."
Norah looked toward the dark window. "What if we lose money by waiting?"
Eli smiled without humor. "Welcome to farming."
The following morning Raymond arrived carrying a moisture meter borrowed from a cabinetmaker and a name written on a piece of paper.
"Forestry extension specialist," he said. "Works with wood identification and reclaimed material. She's going to be in the county next Tuesday. I described the sample without telling her what I think."
"Why not?" Norah asked.