Gray.
Black.
Spotted.
He laughed.
Not a small laugh.
The kind meant to gather an audience.
“You actually did it.”
Heather straightened.
“Did what?”
“Turned Arthur's orchard into a petting zoo.”
Dale laughed.
Marvin tried not to.
Earl looked uncomfortable.
Harold pointed.
“You sold machinery for rabbits?”
“Yes.”
“Two hundred?”
“About.”
Harold laughed again.
“About?”
“They move.”
That made Earl smile.
Harold stepped closer.
“You know what's going to happen?”
Heather wiped dirt from her palms onto her overalls.
“Tell me.”
“Those weeds come back.”
“Probably.”
“The rabbits start chewing bark.”
“Protected.”
“Coyotes get them.”
“Pens at night.”
“Heat kills them.”
“Shade and water.”
Harold's smile weakened slightly.
He had expected no answers.
He recovered.
“You can't run thirty acres with rabbits.”
“Maybe not.”
“So what is this?”
“An experiment.”
“With your last money?”
Heather looked at him.
“How do you know what money I have?”
Everybody went quiet.
Harold's expression shifted.
He had heard.
Of course he had.
Small towns possessed financial intelligence agencies disguised as coffee counters.
He shrugged.
“People talk.”
“Then people need hobbies.”
Harold pointed toward the trees.
“When those peaches come in under grade, don't come asking me to rescue you.”
Heather felt anger rise.
Not because he insulted the rabbits.
Because he spoke as though her failure already belonged to him.
She looked toward the orchard rows.
Then back.
“Come at harvest.”
“What?”
“Come back.”
Harold laughed.
“For what?”
“Bring a calculator.”
Dale stopped smiling.
Heather continued.
“I want you standing right here when you figure out what these rabbits saved me.”
Harold stared.
Then laughed again.
But less confidently.
“You sound like Arthur.”
“Good.”
He returned to his truck.
The story spread.
Heather became Rabbit Girl.
Some farmers said it affectionately.
Others did not.
At the feed store, men made jokes about saddling rabbits.
One asked whether Heather planned to teach them tractor maintenance.
Another offered to sell her fifty chickens so they could operate the irrigation pumps.
Heather smiled when necessary.
Then went home and measured.
That was the part nobody saw.
She kept records.
Arthur's old notebooks became the foundation.
Fuel use from previous years.
Mowing hours.
Herbicide cost.
Fertilizer cost.
Labor.
Irrigation.
Fruit yield.
Heather created simple columns in a ledger.
Previous weed-control cost.
Rabbit-system cost.
Labor difference.
Feed.
Fencing.
Losses.
Manure contribution impossible to value precisely but worth tracking.
Every week she measured vegetation height in sample rows.
Not scientifically perfect.
Consistently.
The first surprise appeared after two weeks.
The rabbits preferred young weeds over tougher mature grass.
So Heather changed rotations.
She moved them more frequently into new growth and used manual cutting on a few coarse patches.
The second surprise was better.
Water use declined slightly.
Not dramatically.
But enough to notice.
Less ground vegetation meant less competition around shallow irrigation areas.
The orchard soil also remained covered in some zones instead of being scraped bare or chemically cleared.
Heather began experimenting with alternating strips.
Rabbit-grazed rows.
Mowed control rows where she borrowed Earl's mower for comparison.
Untouched test sections.
She was not trying to prove rabbits were superior.
She was trying to learn when they were useful.
That distinction became important later.
The rabbits did not solve everything.
They damaged bark on three younger replacement trees before Heather improved guards.
Seven escaped during one stormy night.
Five were recovered.
One probably fed a coyote.
Another disappeared permanently.
Two developed digestive problems and had to be isolated.
Heather learned quickly that wet feed caused trouble.
She lost nine animals total during the season.
Every loss bothered her.
Machines broke without suffering.
Animals made inefficiency moral.
You had to care.
Luis Alvarez visited twice.
He showed her how to improve shelter.
Adjust mineral access.
Recognize early illness.
Reduce crowding.
Maria explained breeding control because Heather absolutely did not need two hundred rabbits becoming eight hundred.
That produced the most laughter at the feed store.
“You'll be buried in rabbits by Christmas,” Marvin said.
Heather looked at him.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I asked somebody who actually raises them.”
He stopped smiling.
That became Heather's pattern.
She did not pretend to know.
She asked.
County extension agent Susan Bell heard about the orchard through Luis.
Susan was thirty-eight, trained in horticulture and integrated pest management.
She drove out one afternoon expecting chaos.
Instead she found Heather moving panels beneath row twenty-three.
Susan parked.
Heather approached cautiously.
“If you're here to tell me this is stupid, get in line.”
Susan laughed.
“I came because everybody saying it's stupid made me curious.”
That Heather liked.
They walked the orchard.
Susan looked at the grazed ground.
The manure.
Tree bark.
Irrigation.
Rabbit density.
She asked technical questions.
Heather answered when she could.
When she could not, she said:
“I don't know.”
Susan smiled.
“Best sentence I've heard all week.”
Heather showed her records.
That changed Susan's attitude.
“You tracked fuel from last year?”
“My dad did.”
“Herbicide?”
“Yes.”
“Labor?”
“Mostly.”
Susan flipped pages.
“Can I copy this?”
“Why?”
“Because this is actually interesting.”
Heather laughed.
“Don't tell Davies.”
“I know Harold.”
“Then definitely don't.”
Susan became the first outsider to treat the project as something other than comedy.
She also challenged Heather harder than Harold ever did.
“Don't romanticize the rabbits.”
“I don't.”
“You are.”
“How?”
“You keep calling manure fertilizer.”
“It is.”
“Eventually.”
Susan pointed toward a row.
“But nutrient availability timing matters. Distribution matters. Nitrogen isn't automatically where the roots need it just because rabbits used the bathroom.”
Heather nodded.
“Fair.”
“And weeds are not all bad.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Susan crouched.
“This low cover reduces dust and can protect soil.”
“So leave some.”