His mother, Rachel, sat across from Daniel.
Rachel handled most of the farm bookkeeping.
She had a calculator beside one hand and a mug of tea that had gone cold.
Toby went to the refrigerator.
Nobody spoke.
That was how he knew the conversation was bad.
Finally, Rachel said:
“We can borrow it.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“We can borrow anything.”
“That doesn't mean we should.”
“If we don't control the damage, we lose more than twelve.”
“If we borrow twelve and something else goes wrong?”
Daniel looked toward the window.
February darkness reflected the kitchen back at him.
“Then we figure out what goes next.”
Toby stood with the refrigerator door open too long.
Rachel noticed.
“You eating something or refrigerating the kitchen?”
He closed it.
“Sorry.”
He took an apple.
One of their own.
Stored since fall.
Slightly soft.
He went upstairs.
That night, he began looking at insects.
Not because he believed a fifteen-year-old could rescue a multigenerational farm.
At least, that was not how he described it to himself.
He simply wanted to understand what they were borrowing twelve thousand dollars to fight.
His grandfather had left books.
Old orchard manuals.
Extension bulletins.
Production guides.
Some badly outdated.
Some useful only as history.
Toby found them in a cabinet inside the old farm office.
He read about orchard sanitation.
Overwintering insects.
Pest life cycles.
Beneficial insects.
Groundcover management.
Livestock integration on diversified farms.
Then he searched modern extension material online.
He learned quickly that chickens were not a universal orchard solution.
That disappointed him.
Internet videos made everything look easier.
Put hens beneath trees.
Hens eat bugs.
Hens fertilize ground.
Farmer saves money.
End.
Actual agricultural guidance contained irritating words such as depends.
Depends on pest species.
Depends on timing.
Depends on stocking density.
Depends on weather.
Depends on soil.
Depends on food-safety requirements.
Depends on predator pressure.
Depends on whether the birds cause more damage than they prevent.
The more Toby read, the less dramatic his idea became.
That made him trust it more.
He began walking the orchard after school.
Not randomly.
Notebook.
Pencil.
Pocket knife.
Small shovel.
He marked rows.
The previous year’s worst-damaged blocks.
Areas where leaves remained thick.
Sections with heavy dropped-fruit accumulation.
Moist spots.
Dry spots.
He pulled back litter.
Dug shallow samples.
Looked.
Sometimes found nothing.
Sometimes beetles.
Larvae.
Earthworms.
Old apple tissue.
Mold.
Roots.
He started drawing crude maps.
North block.
N1 through N12.
South block.
S1 through S8.
He wrote dates.
Weather.
What he found.
Most of it was useless.
But certain patterns repeated.
Some of the insects contributing to the previous season’s problems had life stages associated with the orchard floor, litter, or fallen fruit.
Not all.
Not even most.
Enough to make him wonder whether disrupting those areas at the right time could reduce pressure.
Then he watched the hens.
The Mercers kept a small flock behind the barn.
Twenty-six layers.
Mostly for family eggs and neighbors.
Whenever Toby let them into the rough grass beyond the coop, they scratched aggressively through leaves and old manure.
They found things he never noticed.
Beetles.
Larvae.