The Bet

Christmas arrived and the couple decided to use some of their money to go visit their families. They never considered each going to their respective family's homes alone. They made arrangements to split the week between each family. They agreed to only give small token gifts for the holiday in order to save money.

The couple spent the two days before Christmas with Traci's family. On Christmas morning they exchanged one small gift each and sat enjoying each other's company before preparing a small breakfast. After the light breakfast Traci's brothers and their family's began arriving. Just before she rose from the couch, where she sat beside Sam, to help cook the Christmas feast, Sam pulled Traci onto his lap. She squealed and pushed against him to get away. He pulled her into a kiss then leaned back to look her in the face. He said, "Traci, when we started the bet I thought you were a really nice girl. I liked you but was worried about spending all that time with you. Now I can't think of not being with you. Will you marry me and stay with me the rest of our lives?" He held his hand out to show her an engagement ring before continuing, "I know this is a pretty small ring but it was all I could afford. I hope you will accept it with the love with which I offer it."

Traci smiled and hugged Sam. She gave him a quick kiss then held her shaking hand out for him to place the ring on her left ring finger. She said, "Yes, Sam, I will marry you. I have hoped for the last three months that you would ask me. I love you so much."

Traci's mother and sisters in law heard her scream "yes" and rushed into the room to see the madly kissing couple. When Traci saw them standing in the room watching she held her left hand out and said, "We're going to get married." The women immediately rushed up to the couple and looked at the ring then pulled Traci away to the kitchen for talk and food preparation. The men came into the den and began giving Sam a hard time.

The excitement was repeated somewhat when the newly engaged couple arrived at Sam's parent's home later that evening.

As the winter days became colder and colder the couple ventured outside only when necessary. They spent time daily working on their book, writing about the first months of their adventure and their growing love for each other. Of course the book contained much more detail than does this story. One day while working on the book Sam was reviewing the contract with Fenton. He rewrote and changed a couple of chapters from the early part of the discussion during class then frowned. Sam sat back in his chair and said, "Crap. That sneaky little asshole."

"What, Honey," Traci said looking up from the page she was working on.

"I think I know how Fenton intends to screw us on this deal. I was reading the contract and reviewing some of the early work on the book when I had a nasty thought. You remember the contract says we cannot accept any free help from any agency or person. We have to pay our own way and make income equal to or greater than federal poverty level for a couple or stay here four years?"

"Yeah, but what are you getting at?"

"Remember back in September when he came out here and said if we kept working the farm would be worth a lot more when he got it back?"

"Yeah, but again what does that have to do with this? You know he was just jerking our chain and being the asshole he is."

"Yeah, but what if he wasn't? Nowhere in the contract does it say we can live and work on this place for free. It only says we can do anything we want with the place, sell anything we find on it and have the use of it for four years. We need to pay rent on this place or we will be getting the use of the land for free from Fenton. If you interpret the contract strictly that would put us in violation of the contract. I bet that is the way he plans to get the land back, plus everything we own."

"Oh, my God. I bet you're right. But he wouldn't would he?"

"I don't know but I think we need to find out what land around here rents for and get a check to him. We probably should even include a late fee because rent is supposed to pay at the beginning of the period and we took over the farm June first."

The next day the couple drove into town and talked with the county agent and did some research on line. They arrived at a figure of $30.00 per acre rent. They quickly wrote a check for the first years rent and included a 20% penalty for late payment which seemed to be the common amount charged. They also wrote a different check for the current years rent even though, technically, it wasn't due until the first of June. Both checks were annotated as to purpose and mailed together, certified mail, return receipt requested to Fenton's attorney with a letter of explanation. The checks were also annotated as payment in full for land rent, June 1, XXXX through May 31, XXXX. The money was mailed to the attorney because the contract they signed required all business transacted with Fenton go through the attorney.

A week later the return receipts were received giving them proof of payment. Their next bank statement showed the checks had been negotiated. Sam looked at the statement and grinned. He said, "Well, the attorney cashed the rent checks, or at least someone did. If we don't get a nasty letter about the late payment or something soon I think we dodged that bullet. Now I'm really looking forward to nailing that asshole. I wonder if there's anything else lurking in the woods to bite us on the ass?"

During February the couple prepared and filed their first year's Income Tax Return. Including the capital gains from the sales they earned $32,347 after all valid operating expenses and before the exemptions. That meant, technically, they had succeeded in seven months meeting the income requirements of the contract for the first year. They were confident they could continue that level of income for another year or two with no problem. They hoped to significantly exceed the income requirement before they asked for the contract to be executed. They did not want there to be any question they won the bet fair and square.

In early February the couple began preparing their garden for the early planting. On Valentine's Day they planted lettuce, radishes, turnips and other cool weather crops. On St Patrick's Day they planted green peas, potatoes, beets and carrots, cabbage, and broccoli. They had tomato seedlings growing in the house that were planted in early February so the plants would be large enough to transplant outside in late April or early May. They would bring the tomato plants outside to a hot frame soon.

Finally, the time came to plant the main part of their garden. The first week of May they planted one acre of sweet corn, almost an acre of green beans and 500 tomato plants. They also planted three varieties of squash and pumpkins, some bell peppers, and onions. They now had three acres planted. Every two weeks they would plant another acre of sweet corn until their entire cleared field was planted in vegetables. They spent from dawn to dusk working in the field. Thankfully Sam managed to fit a small two row cultivator to the old tractor so there was minimal hoeing to do. They chose not to stake the tomatoes individually. They set posts every ten feet and strung hog wire between them to vine the plants on.

This was a make or break crop for them. The seed, fertilizer and fuel had taken over $4000 of their cash and they were still using money at an alarming rate working the fields. If they didn't make a good crop they would be in financial trouble but farmers are used to that fear. They grew up living with that possibility so didn't let it get them down. They still had yards to mow in town so had a small amount of income. They were already advertising their produce and taking pre-harvest orders for delivery on harvest. If the crops came in as they expected they would make about $35,000 gross income on them. They would also have all they wanted to eat and preserve for personal use.

In early May the couple also took delivery of 200 baby chickens, three weaning pigs and five bottle calves to raise. Needless to say they worked like most farmers from "can" to "can't" see. Not surprisingly they loved it and were happier than they had been in years. If they had a spare minute they cleared more ground so they could raise more produce the following year. They also spent some time cleaning up around their little house too. Life was busy, but good.

Like most summers this one turned hot and dry about the first of July. Sam had expected that and had plans in place to get water to their crops. They didn't have money they felt comfortable spending for an elaborate irrigation system so they went with a simpler one. They planned to flood or trickle irrigate the rows of growing crops. Sam built a small dam across the springs channel making a pool of water about three feet deep and ten feet across. He purchased large 6" diameter PVC drain pipes to pipe the water to his fields. As the pipe ran along the end of the rows Sam drilled a hole in it every few feet to allow some of the water to escape. This water was directed down the gently sloping rows to trickle irrigate the crops. They still suffered in the heat but they did grow and thrive because they obtained sufficient water.

Finally it was time to begin harvesting the corn, beans and tomatoes. Oh, shit! It was almost all ready at once. The corn and tomatoes were not too difficult to harvest but the beans were very time consuming to pick by hand and caused great back and leg pain from staying stooped over for so long. The couple picked the truck bed full of ears of corn and the trailer bed full of tomatoes and beans working one entire day. Early the next morning they took off for town where they had permission to sell their produce in the parking lot of a local mall. They arrived and set up their truck and shade by 08:30. They finally stopped selling and packed up at dusk that night. They sold almost all their tomatoes, half the beans and three fourths of the corn. With each sale they included their address and phone number so people could come pick their own vegetables if they wished and receive a discount.

Sunday morning they decided there was no need for both of them to go to the mall so Traci went and Sam kept the trailer so he could pick more vegetables. He also made sure the gate was open in case someone wished to come pick their own vegetables.

The first weekend the couple made $1866 on their produce. They spent the first two days of the next week canning and freezing produce that did not sell that weekend. As they picked the corn they pulled the green stalks with no ears left on them and fed them to the livestock. The cattle especially loved the green corn stalks. The chickens and hogs liked the corn cobs and unusable tomatoes.

There were nights during the heavy harvest that Sam and Traci worked until nine or ten p.m. They were constantly exhausted from the work but remained very happy. The occasional rainy day was a blessing because they spent almost the whole day sleeping! After the first two weeks they realized they needed to find some way to sell their produce faster or they would end up having to throw some of it away. They finally found two small grocery stores that agreed to take about half of each picking at wholesale (half what they normally sold the produce for themselves). This kept them from losing the produce and still gave them a profit.

After everything planted for sale was out of the field except the pumpkins, Sam and Traci gave themselves a week off to relax before they began preparing for fall planting and the fall work. They disked up almost an acre to plant fall turnips for later sale and began cleaning the gardens in preparation for spring planting. After that was done they cleared more land then began cutting more firewood.

This season they decided they had enough money in the bank they could see their parents for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They were both anxious to see family and friends after so long although both sets of parents had come to their small wedding in January. After the holidays most of the cold months were spent working on the book once again.

This year's taxes showed their profits were even better than the year before and it was all farm income or income earned from their small business of mowing lawns, selling fire wood, and doing some handyman chores. Except for their produce business they didn't make huge amounts of money from any one place. They had a small amount of income from lawn work, handyman jobs, picking up black walnuts in season and harvesting wild berries and grapes in season. They also spent some time going through the woods and down the stream picking up pretty rocks and strangely shaped root balls and tree and bush limbs then selling them on line to decorators or to the hobby stores that purchased their barn lumber. Their profits the first full year of work on the little farm and from their other endeavors were $39,756. For the second year they exceeded twice the Federal Poverty income threshold for a couple, but just barely. Now it could be argued they had certainly met the requirements of the bet contract. They decided to continue for another year before trying to force the property transfer just to show the first full year wasn't a fluke. Besides, there was no real hurry to complete the contract other than they wanted to ensure Fenton didn't find some way to welsh on the deal.

They felt as if the book was now two thirds complete so they began shopping it around to agents, internet publishers, and traditional publishing houses. They had 17 chapters done and the agent they finally hired suggested they end the book at about 23 to 25 chapters when the land transfer occurred and call it book one of a trilogy. After receiving their permission to do so their agent began trying to sell the book while they worked on completing it and beginning book two.

To their surprise, in early March the agent called and said he had an offer to publish the book from a small independent publishing house. The offer was not great but he thought as unknown authors they should take it. Of course, he also told them there would be some major rewriting required. After discussing the offer they accepted it. They were to get $10,000 up front and 10% royalties. The first printing run would be 10,000 books that they expected to price at $7.99 a copy. If all the books sold they would make almost $18,000 on their book. If there was a second printing the income would be even greater!

After that news Sam and Traci walked hand in hand to the shady glade beside the spring and sat holding each other and staring into the woods in ecstatic shock. They talked excitedly about the book and how they really never thought they could do it. They planned on the final additions and even discussed the next book they would write about their experiences. Finally the sun got low enough the chill air drove them back inside. They walked arm in arm back to their grain bin home and sat snuggled on their small love seat.

Sam looked at Traci and said, "Trace, I think we have enough income and savings now that we can slow down some. Let's stop cutting and selling wood and hire some part time help during the busy season. We can still pick up some extra income if we want from the decorators items we find along the stream and in the woods. We can enjoy life more and spend more time on the next book, too. I also think we need to plant some strawberries next spring and we need help with that. The University web site says you can make $4,000 to $6,000 per acre with a good strawberry crop. If we put out two acres and add to that each year for two or three years we can really make some money. People will drive miles to pick strawberries in season. I think we should plant some asparagus, also. It will take a couple of years for it to grow enough we can sell some but it sells for about $4.00 a pound. That would be a great late spring income crop.

It was another busy summer for the young couple. Even with the two women they hired to help them part time the work was overwhelming. Income and profits were up once again and they planned to stop mowing lawns at the end of the season. They had already stopped doing handyman jobs.

Their book also took a lot of their time until late July when the rewrites were completed. The publishing house wanted to have the book out by the first of December and anticipated good sales for the Christmas market. To their surprise the book sold so well it went into its third printing before the end of the year. They began to receive a lot of pressure from the publishers because they wanted the next book as soon as possible. As a result of that pressure they spent a large amount of time writing it instead of working on their little farm.

Their profits that calendar year from the book sales and from the farm were around $60,000. They decided to force the end to the bet and require Fenton to transfer the land to them so they could build a nice house near the spring. Their plan was to do most of the work by themselves and use the house construction as basis for the third book.

Sam and Traci made an appointment with Fenton's attorney to discuss the contract. On the day of the appointment they loaded up Sam's old truck with the documentation to show they met all the requirements of the bet and took off to town. When they arrived at the attorney's office they had to sit in the waiting area for almost 45 minutes past the appointment time before Fenton showed up. When he finally arrived he was dressed to the nines and strutted into the office. He glanced at Sam and Traci but did not even acknowledge their presence.

When the receptionist asked if she could help him he said in an obnoxious tone, "Mr. Fenton Richards to see John Sterling." He immediately turned and strutted over to a seat on the other side of the room from Sam and Traci.

The receptionist gave Fenton a disgusted look and picked up the intercom. When she announced Fenton she glanced at him before she said, "Mr. Sterling, the other party for your 2 p.m. appointment you and the Donovans have been waiting of has finally arrived."

Fenton glared at her when he heard that. The receptionist said, "Yes, sir." She turned to Sam and Traci, smiled, and said, "Mr. Sterling can see you now, Mr. and Mrs. Donovan. If you'll follow me please."

Immediately after telling Sam and Traci they could follow her the receptionist stood and started around her desk. As she turned the corner of her desk she came to face Fenton. She smiled and said, "Mr. Sterling is ready for you also Mr. Richards. Please follow me."

Fenton angrily stood and glared at the receptionist once again. She just turned and began walking down the hallway. She stopped beside an open door and gestured the three young people into a conference room. She smiled once again and said, "Mr. Sterling will be right with you. He is making a quick call to let his secretary know she might have to reschedule his next appointment because of our late start." At that point Fenton had yet to speak to Sam or Traci.

When the attorney and his Paralegal entered the room there was a round of handshaking and everyone was invited to be seated once again. The attorney leaned forward in his chair and said, "Well, Mr. and Mrs. Donovan, I understand you wish to discuss the termination of the contract and property transfer. Is that correct?"

Before Sam could answer, Fenton smiled and pumped his fist as he hissed, "Yes, I knew you couldn't hold out until the contract expired. How much are you going to sign over to me?"

Sam looked at Fenton and said, "Not one damn thing, Fenton. We have fulfilled every aspect of the contract and have been doing so from the very first year. We just waited this long so there would be no question about our success. We are here for you to sign over the property to us as the contract specifies. We have brought documentation for you and your attorney to review so you can verify we have indeed earned well over the limits you set in the original contract. We also have a statement from our publisher projecting even higher income for the next two years."