I guess I asked for this...

[unicornduke]

I've been helping my parents find and figure out the details of a reservation system for their fall business. I found Planyo which has the flexibility and features they want but it requires more complex setup from the user to make sure it's all good. We have customers who want to book their sites right now, so it has been urgent, so I've been hopping on calls with my dad mostly to go through it and make sure it makes sense. We've decided yes, it makes sense, so he's going to make the proper email, pay them money and get everything set up this week, since I'm mostly busy due to work and travel.

At the end of tonight's call, dad said, hey I think we've figured out how the farm transition will go, we will put land in trust, equipment will stay with the parents and I set up an LLC that absorbs the current business (it's still a sole proprietorship) with a long term lease on land and rent free equipment use and dad would work for me (no pay since he still has his computer business) and I could be ready to go farm next season and they would even fund my operating and living costs for a year

uhhhhhhhhhhhh

I said, honestly, that might be too fast.

I was planning to use this winter to do business financial research and planning and then maybe aim for maybe the 2026 or 2027 season, so this feels alarmingly fast to try and get me back to the farm by like, february.

There is the possibility of housing being provided due to some stuff happening down there, a big question mark is health care stuff.

The other thing is that they aren't sure they want to do public hayrides/pumpkins/corn maze (keeping privately booked groups, see above with reservation system) this year because it's stressful and their pumpkin crop looks bad so they'd need to buy in pumpkins. mom and dad are split on it, they've got me as the tie-breaker which also feels bad. I know the fall is super stressful and my mom hates it. Dad said he didn't want to get rid of an income stream I might need for next year. Dad gave me some numbers and they do make a profit on the fall even with all the labor and everything. Group outings are about a third of the fall income and maybe 2-5% of the variable costs, most of the cost of it is equipment/land and then a little labor. Nothing compared to the public stuff with hayrides, cash registers, display stocking, field stocking, etc. Something like 2/3 of the income but half goes to costs.

I have been pushing them to figure something out for their sake and I did say I was willing to go back to the farm in 1-3 years. sigh. I actually wasn't really expecting them to do it so fast or expect me to come back next season. F and I do have a clause in the lease about buyouts for the house because we knew this was a possibility. But part of it is that I have basically no savings due to the roof, and probably F would pay me back for that or something. I suggested maybe transitioning in the middle of next season, so I'd end up full time by september or so, ready to jump into the fall stuff

I guess I know what I'll be doing on the train this week. it's such a huge thing, so I need to figure out how to break it down into coherent steps and dig into financial stuff now.

arg

Comments

[unicornduke]

yeah, it is a lot. definitely not happening by the beginning of next season, lots to think about and plan.