More canopy.
Less stress curl in the leaves despite a week without meaningful rain.
The Agricultural Specialist knelt.
Pushed a soil probe into the ground.
It slid farther than expected.
The Farmer watched.
His expression changed.
The Farm Girl replaced the screen.
“Trial plot.”
He stared at her.
“You hid that?”
“I protected it from drift and traffic.”
“You hid it.”
She shrugged.
“Maybe I didn’t feel like hosting free tours.”
His friends looked at him.
Nobody laughed now.
The Agricultural Specialist opened a folder.
“Third soil test.”
The Farm Girl wiped her hands.
“Organic matter?”
“Up.”
“How much?”
“Still low overall.”
The Specialist looked at the page.
“But C7 increased from 0.9 to 1.4 percent in the treated band.”
The Farm Girl nodded.
“Respiration?”
“Up significantly.”
“Available nitrogen?”
“High enough that you should stop adding fish there.”
The Farmer interrupted.
“So it works?”
The Specialist looked at him.
“That is not what I said.”
He frowned.
She continued.
“A four-month trial does not prove a whole-farm system.”
“What does it prove?”
“That something measurable is changing.”
The Farm Girl smiled slightly.
That was enough for her.
Not victory.
Data.
She turned toward the remaining buckets.
The Specialist pointed.
“Finish only the mapped plots.”
“I know.”
“No expanding based on excitement.”
“I know.”
The Farmer looked between them.
“You’re actually helping her?”
The Specialist closed the folder.
“I am helping her measure what she is doing.”
“That doesn’t mean I endorse every decision.”
The Farm Girl nodded.
“We’ve had that conversation.”
“Several times.”
The Farmer laughed once.
Not amused.
“Fish in cotton ground.”
He shook his head.
“You people have lost your minds.”
The Specialist answered calmly.
“Possibly.”
Then she pointed at his tractor.
“But she has soil tests.”
“Do you?”
He stopped smiling.
The Specialist walked toward the next sampling point.
The men eventually returned to their trucks.
Before leaving, the loud Farmer called back:
“Come harvest, we’ll see whose numbers matter.”
The Farm Girl did not answer.
She already planned to.
That night, she washed fish smell from her hands three times and still smelled it while eating dinner.
Her farmhouse kitchen was small.
Most of the furniture had belonged to her father.
The refrigerator hummed too loudly.
The ceiling fan clicked once every rotation.
On the table lay a stack of bills.
Seed.
Diesel.
Insurance.
Equipment repair.
Property tax.
The numbers were less entertaining than the farmers’ jokes.
She opened a bank statement.
Then another notebook.