Some farmers sprayed.
Some burned affected plants.
Some ordered expensive powders.
The Young Couple could afford very little.
That was when the ducks appeared.
Now everybody had an opinion.
The Old Farmer had the loudest.
He had been farming the valley nearly fifty years.
White beard.
Brown felt hat.
Dark vest.
Cream shirt rolled at the forearms.
His boots had been repaired so many times that the original leather was probably a minority.
He had seen floods.
Blizzards.
Locust years.
Bad markets.
Good markets that became bad before people could enjoy them.
He believed strongly in experience.
Unfortunately, he sometimes confused experience with universal law.
Blind ducks belonged in his category of obviously stupid ideas.
The ducks reached the third row.
One stopped.
Its head tilted.
Then it pecked rapidly at the underside of a cabbage leaf.
Again.
Again.
It swallowed something.
The Young Farm Woman noticed.
She crouched.
Lifted the leaf.
Small beetle.
Gone.
She smiled.
The Old Farmer saw.
“One bug.”
She ignored him.
Another duck snapped.
Then another.
The flock began spreading naturally.
Not randomly.
They followed noise.
Smell.
Movement.
The Young Farm Man watched.
Some of his skepticism softened.
Then a farmer behind the fence said:
“What happens when they eat the crop?”
The Young Farm Woman answered:
“We move them.”
“You gonna guide sixty blind ducks?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
She picked up a small tin cup.
Shook it.
Grain rattled inside.
Every duck stopped.
All sixty heads turned toward the sound.
The farmers went quiet.
The Young Farm Woman walked ten feet.
Shook again.
The flock followed.
Not perfectly.
But together.
The Young Farm Man smiled for the first time that morning.
The Old Farmer frowned.
“That proves they hear.”
The Woman answered:
“That’s all I need.”
One of the farmers behind him laughed.
Not at her.
At him.
The Old Farmer looked back.
The man became interested in his hat.
The Young Couple spent the next week learning.
The ducks learned faster.
Every morning, the Young Farm Woman led them from the barnyard with the grain cup.
Shake.
Pause.
Shake.
They followed between rows.
At first, the Young Farm Man walked along one side to prevent wandering.
By day four, barely necessary.
The ducks understood the route.
More importantly, they hunted.
Slugs disappeared first.
Then beetles.
Grubs exposed during cultivation.
Crickets.
Larvae.
Anything moving and small enough became food.
The ducks did nibble lettuce.
They stepped on two bean seedlings.
One somehow climbed into a basket and fell asleep.
Nothing was perfect.
But crop damage from insects slowed noticeably in the sections where they worked.
The Young Farm Woman kept records.
She marked rows.
Duck access.
No duck access.