Page 28 of The Reason I Married Him
“More than you know.” I press the pedal again, sending him flying in his seat.
“Bees?”he asks, looking at the stacks of bee boxes from afar. Since we’re not suited up, we don’t want to get too close, although the thought of driving close enough to the bees only to make a quick turn in hopes that Wyatt would fall out of the four-by-four is appealing.
“Yes, bees. Like I said, we’re harvesting honey and plan on adding jars to The Almond Store by offering almond and wildflower-infused honey as well as honey butter, but that is further down the road. And of course, just regular honey.”
He slowly nods, taking in all the bee boxes Echo has lined up. “Will you be adding to the bakery side of the store?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Well, given you’re creating more room for things on the farm like honey and eggs, those could be used toward other forms of income like breads and baked goods that specialize in the flavors you’re creating around your brand. For instance, if you do the honey butter—which, in my opinion, investing in some cows on the property to make the butter would be wise—then you can sell loaves of crispy artesian bread with the butter and upcharge for the combo. You could also add in things like cherry almond baklava. You incorporate your brand flavors, use the honey, but then also create another signature piece for the bakery section that will bring in tourists from all around.”
I hate him.
I really, really hate him.
Because dammit, that’s a good idea. Cherry almond baklava? Good God, where can I get that now? My mouth waters just thinking about it.But who would bake it?
“And then of course the cow manure can help fertilize, not that you would have enough cows to fertilize all of the potatoes, but let me ask you this. Do you ever have leftover potatoes from harvest?”
My nostrils flare because I feel like I know where this is going.
“Yes.”
He nods. “You’re unable to produce vodka with all the potatoes?”
“No, we do sell them to local restaurants, though.”
“At what cost? Probably something cheap because you’re all small businesses trying to make a penny in a small town, so you pat their back, they pat yours. Although, how are they truly giving back to you as a restaurant? Sure, they can say if you want dessert, try the one dessert item The Almond Store offers, which is a cookie. But customers could be in the mood for ice cream, so they’ll go to the ice cream store instead, which makes me wonder, should you be offering some ice cream at The Almond Store? With the cows coming in, they can help provide milk for the butter and ice cream, and once again, you take your signature flavors of almond, cherry, and honey, use the eggs you have of course, and create an ice cream palate of unique flavors, driving more people into the store, which of course will spur them on to buy more.”
How?
How is he seeing all of this?
How can he just sit here casually and ramble on about how to improve the farm by just looking at bee boxes and make sense of it all? It’s infuriating.
“Not to mention, if you cut down on the potato fields, maybe down to half because you could probably lose half the fields and produce just as many potatoes that you need to process the vodka and the almond extract, you could use the extra space for the cows. Also, the farm next to yours is a dairy farm. You could possibly form a connection with them, offer some of your land for rent to expand their cows, and then take some of their milk. I’m just spit-balling here, but the possibilities are endless.”
How did we go from bees to this?
Is this what writers are like?
They just ramble on forever, drawing up new images and ideas in their head, making you feel inferior in the field you’ve been training?
I clear my throat. “Well, that was a tangent.” A helpful one, but a tangent.
“Yeah, but with a lot of potential. Shall we move on?”
I’m afraid to.
What will he say when we reach the potatoes?
“It smellslike rotten potatoes in here,” Wyatt says as he looks at the silos. We had just finished visiting the fields, and lucky for me, he didn’t have much to say other than if I switched to drip irrigation rather than a sprinkler system, we’d save fifty percent on water.
I countered that a sprinkler system reduces the chance of frost.
Then he questioned how much frost we were getting.
I then pretended to act like Parson was calling me, and I took off without looking back.
