Chapter 11 - One More Set of HandsMaggie stood beside the pond holding feed.
Roy approached.
“What are you doing here?”
“Helping.”
“With what?”
Roy looked at the bucket.
“Fish eat, don’t they?”
Maggie stared at him long enough to make him uncomfortable.
Then handed him another bucket.
“Not too much.”
“I know how to feed animals.”
“Fish aren’t cattle.”
Roy threw the first handful too heavily.
Maggie immediately stopped him.
“Less.”
“They’re eating it.”
“They’ll eat themselves into bad water if you let them.”
“They look hungry.”
“They always look hungry.”
Roy reduced the next handful.
“This is ridiculous.”
Maggie smiled.
“So was fish on a soybean farm.”
Roy gave her a look.
She laughed.
They worked quietly.
Hundreds of small ripples moved across the pond.
When feeding ended, Maggie checked the aerator.
Then water.
Roy followed.
“What’s that?”
“Dissolved oxygen.”
“And that?”
“Ammonia.”
“You test every day?”
“Some things every day. Some less often.”
“How do you know how much feed?”
“Estimated biomass.”
Roy frowned.
“English.”
“Average fish weight multiplied by estimated population. Then feed as a percentage.”
Roy thought.
“You recalculate after harvest.”
Maggie looked over.
“Yes.”
He smiled slightly.
“I listen sometimes.”
“That’s new too.”
Roy returned the next morning.
And the next week.
At first he came twice.
Then three times.
He did not take over.
Maggie noticed.
That mattered more than the labor.
One evening, she showed him preliminary numbers for the second pond.
Roy read every page.
Not just the conclusions.
He stopped at one assumption.
“You haven’t tested clay depth over there.”
“No.”
“Want me to call Denise?”
Maggie smiled.
“I already did.”
Roy laughed.
When the soil test came back, construction costs were higher than expected.
Roy suggested borrowing.
Maggie refused.
“You’ve got a profitable operation.”
“One year.”
“You need scale.”
“I need survival.”
Roy frowned.
“Thinking small can be a mistake.”
“So can thinking big because one thing worked.”
Their disagreement remained civil.
That was progress.
Then a regional seafood distributor contacted Maggie.
The representative arrived in a clean truck wearing spotless boots.
He inspected the pond.
Looked at Maggie’s sales records.
Then offered a contract.
The monthly volume was enormous compared with her current business.
The money was even larger.
Roy’s eyes widened.
“This is it.”
Maggie kept reading.
Minimum pounds every month.
Penalty for short supply.
Twelve-month locked price.
Buyer-controlled grading.
“You’re going to sign, right?” Roy asked.
“No.”
He stared.
“What?”
“I haven’t finished reading.”
“Maggie, that contract could triple revenue.”
“It could.”
“Then?”
“To supply it, I’d need more fish than this pond can safely carry.”
“Build the second pond.”
“Not in time.”
“Borrow.”
“No.”
“You wanted to build a business.”
“I do.”
“This is business.”
“This is pressure.”
Roy threw up his hands.
“Sometimes you have to take a chance.”
Maggie almost laughed.
“A year ago you threw me out for taking one.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
Roy opened his mouth.
Stopped.
Maggie took the contract to Denise.
“What do you think?” Denise asked.
“If everything goes right, it’s great.”
“And?”
Maggie smiled tiredly.
“I’ve learned how often everything goes right.”
She declined.
The distributor representative stared at her.
“You’re seventeen.”
Maggie smiled.
She had heard that before.
“You understand what you’re turning down?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll never grow if you’re afraid.”
“I’m afraid of promising fish I don’t have.”
He left.
Roy remained frustrated.
Then, two months later, a disease scare hit another hatchery in the region.
Customers panicked.
Fish sales across the county fell.
Maggie’s revenue dropped nearly forty percent.
Roy looked at the empty order board.
Neither mentioned the contract she had refused.
Then one buyer called.
He offered to purchase almost half her market-size fish immediately.
At a low price.
Cash.
Enough to protect the operation through winter.
But if demand recovered, Maggie might be selling at the worst possible moment.
May you like
She looked at Roy.
For once, the notebook did not provide an obvious answer.
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