She took samples.
She studied maps.
She borrowed books from the library and watched videos until midnight with a cracked laptop propped on a paint bucket.
Then she called Natalie.
Natalie had been her friend long before the farm had a name.
They met in college during a lab project that went wrong, when Sienna spilled a tray of soil samples and Natalie silently crouched down to help before anyone else stopped laughing.
Natalie was the kind of friend who noticed when someone was drowning and did not waste time making them perform gratitude.
She loaned Sienna $3,200 from money she had saved for a used car.
Sienna wrote a promise to repay on the back of a seed catalog, signed it, dated it, and put a copy in a plastic folder.
