"Most people only write down the exciting days," Mira said while looking through the binder. "Then, a year later, they remember a place as more productive than it was. The empty searches matter because they tell you how often you looked, not just how often you got lucky."
Tess nodded so firmly that Nora laughed. "Don't encourage her. We already have more columns than trees."
"You can always simplify the record later," Mira replied. "You can't reconstruct observations you never made."
The comment reminded Nora of her first spring's fence failure. She had known something about goat browsing but had not known how to measure whether the work was moving the lane forward. Tess's ledger had made the difference visible. Now the same habit was helping them understand an underground crop without assuming every tree would produce it.
They still could not count truffles as standing inventory. A pecan hanging from a branch could be seen, assessed, and roughly estimated before harvest. The fungus beneath the ground might be present and immature, present and mature, or absent that season altogether. It might appear close to one tree and not another only a few yards away. Moisture and weather changed what Rook could detect, and the dog himself was a living partner rather than a measuring instrument.
Nora found she liked that last fact most. Rook brought curiosity and judgment to the work, but he also required care. On hot days, they searched early and stopped before the ground grew uncomfortable. When he tired, they went home. If he ignored a row, Nora did not insist he try again merely because she wanted a sale that week.
One morning, they encountered a small animal trail leading toward the untouched portion of the orchard. Rook followed it for a few steps, then looked back at Nora as if asking permission to explore. She called him away, and he returned without protest. The truffles were not worth losing the dog in a wall of blackberries and old wire, and she had learned that curiosity needed boundaries when the ground itself was uncertain.
Elena continued buying only small, acceptable lots when mature material was available. She sometimes called with requests timed to special meals, and sometimes Nora had to tell her that the dog had not found enough suitable material to fill an order. Elena adjusted her menu. The relationship survived because both women understood the value of an honest answer before a delivery date was promised.
Tess watched those calls carefully. She had worried that refusing an order would end the opportunity, but she began to see that the chef's trust increased when Nora declined to overpromise. The next request came with fewer assumptions and more questions about what the orchard was actually producing. It was a business relationship being built at the same pace as the crop itself.
One evening, Elena visited the property with Mira's approval and walked the open rows without collecting anything. She wanted to understand the place where her ingredient came from. Nora showed her the guarded trunks, the old irrigation riser, and the concrete foundation near the cross lane. The chef stopped beneath one of the oldest pecans and looked up into its broad branches.