It was the first time Earl had been asked to sound like a supplier rather than a farmer selling a useful surplus. He spent a whole evening composing a one-page agreement on the kitchen table. It listed grades, quantities, delivery dates, and the condition of the wood, but it made no extravagant promises. He mailed two copies and included a stamped return envelope because that was how business moved in 1983.
When the signed copy came back, he placed it beside his moisture notebook. It felt important that the customer had trusted both. One recorded the work done in the shed; the other recorded the expectations of someone who would pay him for that work. Earl began to realize that consistency could become a kind of product of its own.
The orders changed the rhythm of his days. At dawn he tended cattle and checked the fields. Through the hottest hours he tried to avoid demanding work in the barn, saving strenuous lifting for early morning or evening when possible. After supper he sorted oak, checked labels, and prepared shipments under a hanging work light, the smell of aged whiskey and sawdust mixing with the ordinary odor of hay.
His hands began to ache in ways farm work had not caused. Removing old hoops and handling curved staves strained his wrists, and a full day working bent over the bench left his shoulders stiff through the night. He bought a better set of clamps and adjusted the height of his work surface. He had survived too many years on the land to think that determination made injuries harmless.
Glen watched him working one afternoon and suggested hiring somebody for the heavy lifting. Earl shook his head. "Can't pay a man until I know the orders will keep coming." Glen lifted a stave and turned it beneath the light.
"Then figure out a way to count your own labor. You're acting like it doesn't cost anything." Earl opened his mouth to argue, then closed it.
That night he added another column to his notebook. HOURS, he wrote, and began recording the actual time required to dismantle, inspect, condition, grade, and prepare a barrel equivalent for sale. The numbers surprised him. His apparent profit was smaller than it had looked when he considered only cash paid for materials.
He did not find that discovery discouraging. A number that reduced his optimism but improved his decisions was still useful. He adjusted his quotations for future orders, explaining the price by the quality and preparation rather than by the original cost of the barrels. Some buyers hesitated, but most returned when the material arrived as described.
Leonard Price became more than a customer during those early years. He telephoned Earl after certain projects and described what the wood had done under his tools. One set had produced a handsome dining table, while another had contained too many short pieces for the cabinet Leonard had intended to build. Earl listened without defensiveness, then revised his grade descriptions to make the range of usable lengths clearer.