Alice's Farm

by Maryrose Wood

  Janis paused. “Ask the kid,” she said lightly. “Maybe he knows.”

  “Bun bun bun bun bun,” Marie sang in explanation, but no one paid her any mind. It was time for the meeting to begin.

  * * *

  This was no cottontail meeting, that’s for sure. It was noisy, with plenty of crosstalk and not one moment of quiet contemplation. There were as many kinds of farmers in the room as there were slices of pie on the table in back. There were large-scale farmers with thousands of acres, and small family farms with five. There were dairy farmers and meat farmers. There were “monocrop” farmers who grew a single crop, year after year: corn, say, or wheat, or onions, or Christmas trees; and “specialty crop” farmers, which meant everything else, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, and flowers.

  There were organic farmers who used no chemicals at all and grew heirloom seeds that had been saved from season to season, going back generations. They composted and used cover crops, and they chatted knowledgeably about the health of the soil, moisture retention, and “regenerative agriculture.”

  There were chemical farmers who relied on artificially produced fertilizers, insecticides, and weed killers, and used seeds that had been genetically modified to withstand those very same chemicals. Naturally, the only place to buy these seeds was from the same company that sold you the chemicals, and you had to buy new seeds every year because you weren’t allowed to save any. These farmers talked about the cost of “inputs,” meaning, all the things they had to buy from the company every year to stay in business.

  Some of the other farmers called this “a racket” and being put “over a barrel.” Many of the chemical farmers didn’t disagree, but it was a system that worked for now and would be difficult and time-consuming to change, and in the meanwhile they had families to support.

  When the conversation got heated, they talked about the weather. Every farmer had something to say about the weather. They also found unity by naming a common enemy: in this case, stinkbugs. Carl found this part of the meeting quite engrossing. Apparently, stinkbugs were a big problem, and it wasn’t just the smell. They were an invasive species that literally sucked the juice out of all kinds of fruits and vegetables and caused enormous damage.

  Interestingly, one way to manage the stinkbug problem was to sic a different invasive species on them: an army of tiny wasps that liked to lay their own eggs inside the stinkbugs’ eggs, thus killing them. These were called samurai wasps, and if Samurai Wasps vs. Stinkbugs wasn’t the most weirdly appealing idea for a video game since Zombie Chipmunks vs. Robot Squirrels, Carl didn’t know what was.

  This conversation led to a serious discussion of bees that kept Brad on the edge of his seat. Bees were the all-important business partners of farmers—no pollination meant no fruit—and everyone was worried about them, as there had been major bee die-offs in recent years. Some of the organic farmers blamed the chemical farmers for contributing to the bees’ decline. Others blamed different causes, or a combination of things, or noted that scientists still didn’t know exactly why the bees were dying.

  It seemed like everybody had a lot to say. Sally got a headache from all the loud voices and strong opinions. Brad took notes like crazy. After the first hour, there was a break for more pie and coffee, and immediately the farmers were all friends again, asking after one another’s health, kids, livestock, elderly relatives, and so on.

  In short order the meeting reconvened, now with Farmer Janis presiding. She tapped on the microphone to make sure it was on. “Settle down, everyone. Time for thank-yous: First, to Dorothy and Phyllis, for the great coffee and the spectacular pies.” Everyone clapped. “And thanks as ever to Stuart, for hosting us here in the barn.”

  “My pleasure. Remember, farmers get ten percent off!” Stuart called from the side.

  “We appreciate the consideration. Before I introduce our guest speaker, I have two announcements—what is it, Ruth?”

  Ruth Shirley was in the front row, waving her hand wildly and bouncing in her seat as if trying to get picked for a game show. At the sound of her name, she jumped on stage and took hold of the microphone.

  “I just need a second, Janis.” She smiled at crowd. “Hey there, everybody! I’m Ruth Shirley? Of Ruth Shirley Realty?”

  “We know, Ruth!” someone called out, to laughter. “Just don’t mention your billboard!”

  “Not everyone knows who I am, Claire. Yet!” More laughter. “Seriously, if you’re buying or selling houses, farms, or land, I’m your gal. Call me, my number’s on the billboard—gotcha!” Ruth’s smile was pure sugar. “I just wanted to remind everyone about the raffle.” She waved a roll of tickets. “Only a dollar a ticket, ten dollars for twelve. Phil’s raffling off a new rototiller. All proceeds go to the public library. I told him he’s nuts, but you know Phil.”

  Phil waved from the side of the room, where he leaned against a wall. “I’m nuts, all right. Look who I married!” More laughter. “Seriously, it’s a beautiful machine and there’s plenty more in my showroom. Hey, Janis! Why don’t you get rid of that Tin Can of yours and buy a real tractor? I’ll pay for your raffle ticket myself.”

  Janis smirked. “Funny you say so, Phil. I’ve been thinking of upgrading. To a horse!” That cracked everyone up. It was a running gag, Phil’s endless attempts to sell the latest equipment to Janis, who just kept rebuilding a fifty-year-old tractor engine and carrying on. She dug some cash out of her overalls. “Ruth, here’s ten bucks for a dozen. You fill ’em out for me.” With a sly look to the audience, she added, “I’m in the egg business, what can I say? The rest of you should do the same. It’s a worthy cause.”

  Ruth beamed and waved as she took her seat, and Janis continued. “As I was saying: two announcements. First, as chair of the hospitality committee, I want to make sure you’ve all met our new family. Stand up and take a bow, Harveys! That’s Brad, Sally, Carlsbad—you thought I forgot, huh, kid?—and that’s little Applesauce right there. They farm the old Crenshaw place. Be nice to ’em; they’re good folks.”

  “The boy is blind, poor thing,” Dorothy the pie lady whispered to her friend, Phyllis. Only those in the back row (and one sharp-eared Shiba Inu) could hear. Foxy woofed in displeasure. Carl thought she was bored, so he let her lick the pie crumbs from his fingers.

  “Speaking of apples,” Janis said, “it’s time to start planning the Harvest Festival. How’s the second Saturday in October look for everyone? Show of hands?”

  The second Saturday of October seemed fine with most.

  “Done. Put it on your calendars. That was my second announcement. Harvest Festival subcommittee, come see me before you leave. Now, let’s give a warm valley welcome to our guest speaker, Theodore Collins.”

  Janis handed the microphone to their guest, who’d set up a small projector and portable screen during the break. He pulled a sleek tablet computer out of his mud-stained knapsack and began his talk.

  Farmer Ted was a fourth-generation farmer from Pennsylvania Dutch country. His talk was about branding, website design, e-commerce, digital marketing, mail-order fulfillment, and other topics of the sort that used to occupy Brad Harvey full-time at his old job. Some folks’ eyes glazed over; others listened hard and asked questions. Brad couldn’t help leaping in at one point, to clarify a technological issue that Farmer Ted was fuzzy about. That let the cat out of the bag, and now everyone wanted to talk to Brad.

  Later, as the chairs were folded and stacked, and the leftover pies were packed up for the food bank at the church, one of the older farmers, Larry Fleischman Senior—he was the twins’ grandfather—approached. His son, Larry Junior, and a few others were in tow. They all introduced themselves.

  “What’s your story, Brad?” Larry Senior said, gruff but friendly. “You used to work for an ad agency, sounds like? Selling cornflakes to the masses and whatnot?”

  Brad held his fedora; now he tucked it behind his back. “Not exactly. It was a branding agency.” That drew blank looks, so h
e explained. “It’s what comes before advertising. We develop the brand’s conceptual and visual messaging and strategize how to communicate it to a precisely targeted customer avatar, through a range of media outlets, direct marketing, special events…” The words poured out with practiced ease, but Brad would have liked it better if they’d wanted to discuss beekeeping instead.

  Larry Senior crossed his arms. “Are you talking about selling? I give you my wares, you give me your money?”

  “Indirectly, yes. Increased sales are the whole point.”

  “It sounds like you’re an expert.”

  Brad shrugged. “I worked in the field for quite a few years. It wasn’t much fun, actually. I moved up here to get away from all that.”

  The old farmer guffawed. “Unless you want your farm to go bankrupt, you can’t get away from selling, Brad. That’s a fact.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Marie’s brilliant idea.

  “So, according to the alpha human,” Foxy concluded, “by which I mean, the human who was the strongest and smartest and clearly deserved to be in charge, which was obvious since he was the only one who could make pictures appear on a screen: Farms make money by doing something called branding.”

  “Branding,” Alice repeated, ears adroop in confusion. Like Larry Fleischman Senior, she didn’t know what branding meant, although, unlike Larry Fleischman Senior, she didn’t reflexively think of it as being a painful stamp inflicted by a red-hot iron that some cattle farmers still applied to the flanks of cows, to mark them as their own.

  “Yes, branding. And marketing. They are absolutely necessary, and they must include a website,” Foxy said firmly. “That’s what the alpha human said, and he certainly smelled like an expert.”

  It was a hot August afternoon in the garden, a Wednesday, a few days after the meeting. Carl had gotten up early to run the farm stand. Afterward he’d eaten lunch, and now he was napping in a pile of soft hay in the shade behind the barn. Such naps are always a farmer’s prerogative, which explains why farms tend to have so much hay lying around.

  Carl was supposed to be watching Marie while his parents walked the orchard and strategized about the apple harvest, but Foxy was right there and a highly competent babysitter. The animals decided to let the boy sleep for a while. It was the perfect opportunity to hear Foxy’s detailed report on the farmers’ meeting. Marie had heard it all firsthand, but Alice and Thistle hung on the dog’s every woof.

  Foxy accepted their rapt attention as her due. Yes, she’d made a fuss about going to the meeting, but it wasn’t just because she hated being left home alone (although she did). Her pert ears missed nothing; from Brad and Sally’s private parental chatter she’d gleaned that the meeting had to do with how to properly run a farm and turn vegetables into money, a subject much too vital to leave to her humans to figure out.

  Ah, those well-intended, slow-paced, blunt-nosed, practically earless humans! How could they be expected to understand important things?

  And so, the dog had boldly seized her spot in the Subaru, endured the interest of the Fleischman twins, accepted her meager taste of pie crumbs without begging for more, and snoozed in discomfort on the cold wooden floor beneath Carl’s chair—all to hear Farmer Ted’s presentation. She’d listened hard and now felt completely confident in her general understanding of his message. That Foxy was prone to overconfidence was beside the point: She knew what the man had said as well as anyone there. Better, probably, given her superior hearing.

  “Branding is simple,” she assured the others. “It has to do with letting people know how wonderful you are. I do it all the time. Marketing is the same, but at a market, obviously.”

  “It sounds straightforward,” Thistle agreed. “But what’s a website? Can we get the spiders to make one? Sounds like something they’d be good at.”

  “We could ask the spiders,” said Alice, who wasn’t yet convinced it was as simple as Foxy had described. “But it seems that the main thing is making sure a lot of humans know about the farm, and how tasty all the vegetables are.”

  “That’s a job for the blue jays, then,” Thistle said wisely.

  Foxy nuzzled the little cottontail. “It would be, my young friend, except for one fact: Only the Marie-sized people can understand the blue jays, and the Marie-sized people have a terrible time getting the Sally- and Brad-sized people to understand anything.”

  “Yahhh,” said Marie, who knew the truth of this firsthand.

  Foxy licked the baby’s face consolingly before concluding, “Alas, it’s the big, uncomprehending grown-up humans who have all the moolah.”

  “What’s moolah?” Thistle asked.

  “Cash. Dough. Simoleons. Scratch. It all means money. Humans have as many words for money as you rabbits have for—well, whatever it is you think about most.”

  What did rabbits think about most? The answer depended on which rabbit you asked. Some thought mostly about eating, and some thought mostly about getting eaten. In people, that’s the difference between being an optimist and a pessimist. In rabbits, too, it was a question of temperament, but also choice: Being part of the food chain was unavoidable, but how you felt about it was up to you. Thistle wanted to debate the point. Alice preferred to stick to the subject at hand.

  “On this we all agree: There’s a wide range,” she said diplomatically. She’d begun using that phrase in honor of Violet, who’d been taken by a predator a few weeks back; an owl, probably, but it might have been a hawk, and everyone hoped that it was. “Foxy, please finish your point about the simoleons.”

  Foxy scratched herself vigorously with a hind leg. The Harveys were so frantically busy these days it had been weeks since her last bath, and she was beginning to feel unkempt. “My point is, the blue jays would be useful if all humans were as clever as Marie. But they’re not.”

  “Nope nope nope,” Marie said, in passionate agreement. Her own frustration about this was keen, and for obvious reasons: Her speech improved slowly, while the list of truly fascinating topics she wanted to discuss grew longer by the day. It’s well known that toddlers are prone to tantrums, but think how it must feel to be so thoroughly misheard and underestimated! Anyone, of any age or size, would be likely to have at least a few tantrums about that.

  Alice gazed up at the clever baby, who had learned to stroke those soft rabbit ears with great delicacy, and thus earned the privilege of having the bun-buns sit in her lap when Carl wasn’t looking (much as they liked the boy, sitting in a human farmer’s lap was still too much for any wild rabbit to contemplate, and they didn’t want to put the idea in his head). “We’ll have to find another way to spread the news, then. Marie, how do the big humans learn things?”

  The baby pursed her rosy lips. “Cham, book,” she answered, after a moment’s consideration. “Bubonic plague!”

  What Marie meant, of course, was that Carl had learned a great deal about the bubonic plague from books, which suggested that putting information in written form was an excellent way to get humans to learn things.

  Her logic was correct, and so was her conclusion, the rabbits realized at once, for how many times had Lester bragged about all he’d learned from consuming literature? All they needed to do was put the news of Prune Street Farm’s spectacularly good vegetables in written, readable form, someplace where as many humans as possible would see it.

  If the spiders knew how to weave a website, that might be worth a try, too, but they certainly couldn’t help with the writing part, as everyone knows spiders can’t write, any more than rabbits or dogs or foxes can. Only humans could do that.

  Alice licked Marie’s grubby hand, which could barely hold a crayon. The animals had done all they could.

  The rest was up to Marie.

  * * *

  Any parent will tell you: it’s dizzying how fast a baby changes. The littlest young ’uns grow nearly as fast as radishes. At eighteen months of age, Marie still wore diapers and talked nonsense, but every day her lovely bab
bling sounded a smidgen more like the kinds of words that, someday, even a grown-up human could understand.

  She could walk on her own now, and grew teeth at an alarming rate. Interestingly, she’d found that the GlitterTooth Chew-Bones were the only thing that really hit the spot when she had teething pain. Sally kept snatching the Chew-Bones away and replacing them with teething biscuits meant for babies, but Foxy would generously bring Marie new GlitterTooth treats from her own private reserves. The baby’s newly erupted teeth were white as snow and sparkled like dewdrops; minty applesauce was her aroma, and an appealing one it was, too.

  The dog days of summer were rolling by, and Marie gave serious thought to that conversation in the garden, in her own baby-brained way. She thought about how much she liked petting the bun-buns, and how pleasant it was when Foxy licked her face, and how nice it was to be able to put dirt in her mouth when Cham fell asleep and only the animals were watching her.

  Now she had an important job to do, just like Cham did. What a big girl she was! But as she herself couldn’t read or write just yet, she’d have to be strategic about it. Cham, she felt, was going to be the key. That boy was scribbling all the time, lately.

  It was getting toward the end of August. Marie had been toddling around the kitchen, looking for things to chew on, and got herself busy dumping out the box of old paper. What a fine mess she made! The Harveys kept a tidy house, mind you, but neither Brad nor Sally liked to throw things in the trash if it could be helped. Items purchased at the store were bought in bulk, without packaging if possible, and stored in glass jars at home. Kitchen scraps were composted and returned to the soil. Most kinds of paper—newspapers, magazines, brown bags, plain cardboard—were saved in a box in the corner of the kitchen. These would be used to start fires in the fireplace when the cold weather came, or shredded to use as packing material.

  “Shoo bear!” Marie crowed in victory, bits of damp paper spraying from her mouth. “Shoo bear! Cham, look!” She pointed, a new skill.