unicornduke (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unicornduke) wrote2024-09-03 07:43 pm
unicornduke) wrote2024-09-03 07:43 pm
things are occurring rapidly
my mom finally told us/I convinced her it was fine to quit the farm. Not amazing timing but so be it. She did tell me she wanted to quit the farm back in April but then would have felt guilty leaving before strawberry season. Sigh. She's so cranky about it anyway, at least me and my dad can make ding dang decisions. she's also being really weird about pesticide stuff.
I went to the parents on Friday after work last week and we (mostly my dad and I) spent the whole weekend planning things and working out staff, what we'd reduce on the farm, what we would need to do to get it all done. Schedules. Things I need to take over from mom (extremely incomplete list that mom thought was her to-do list so deleted stuff from it? I still don't understand. "I thought it was weird that it was labeled 'Mom transfer list'" okay mom)
Dad and I went over to the pines to look at the pavilion that is going to be the fourth picnic site. We're having two dedicated group outing tractor drivers plus a third floater in case of overflow groups. New reservation system is enabling this also to make up for lost public sales revenue. We will still be having public sales, but no free hayrides, no field picking of pumpkins and no scarecrow making on the first weekend. People don't come out as much for picking pumpkins off displays as the other stuff. Corn maze will be open since all of the work is already done and it's free money more or less.
We debated a ton about how much of the public stuff to drop but the fall business has a huge customer base that comes back every year, will put up with some nonsense and the distance to the farm, and are willing to spend a lot of money on stuff. So we don't want to fully shut down the fall business if I'm going to take the farm over next year.
It's looking increasingly likely to happen which is good. My end looks relatively easy, I need to set up a new business and do a lot of paperwork, but some of that I can hand off to a farm accountant. The much more difficult things will be on my parents end. I think I will enjoy running the farm, I like doing tedious things like cultivating several acres of strawberries all day. This winter I need to really dig into the financial and management side of things. The farm has definitely suffered in some ways by not having someone full time on the farm and in charge. My mom is full time but doesn't want to make decisions, so things don't get noticed or done or improved. Or even things like they only do maintenance on equipment when they pull it out to use it and then need to fix things. So if I'm on the farm full time and doing a good job, then I should be having someone look at equipment ahead of time. Weekly scouting. My dad never made the leap since he didn't want to shut down his pretty good computer business. I'm writing out goals (hire someone else full time by year two, buy an apple cider donut maker by year three, etc)
The property stuff that I don't want to talk too much about publicly is increasingly likely to end up with my parents acquiring a house and the pines even as admitted by the representative of the organization who were trying to sell it off (don't ask, it's all convoluted, should have answers on all three parts of the property within a year, probably (the decisions of people from the 1890s can come back to haunt/benefit you)). House has a built in office (for separating my personal and business stuff) and is fully livable if very 70s according to my dad. But even if not, my grandma's house is now empty (drama cousin just moved to texas) and I suspect my uncle would rent it to me for very cheap.
I am now doing all the group outing reservation stuff online with the new system with some questions directed to my mom about groups since she has a thousand things she keeps in her mind about the specific groups that come back year after year. I'm going down to the farm a lot this fall since I'm going to be the selling area manager/group outing coordinator on weekends. I'm going to miss one weekend probably for work related things. I won't make it down to NY Sheep and Wool unfortunately, so I'll miss the folks there :( But we just got off the phone about a huge set of group outings now scheduled for that weekend that if we can pull it off, will be really worth it.
I need to sit down with my mom this weekend and go over ordering and purchasing. Ordering so many things of various random stuff. Porta-potties, foam stuff for deco, cooking sticks, etc etc. I'm hoping to have most of the stuff off her plate by opening weekend since she hasn't actually really quit the farm, she's doing the weekday group outing stuff. She's very bad at actually saying no to my dad. They're very bad at communicating. I don't get it. hashtag boomers?
I'm sleeping a lot but not tired, which is great. I have energy, I'm solving problems. Need lots of brain breaks but that's okay. Work being so quiet is the only reason I think this is doable. If I had a vaguely normal workload, it wouldn't happen, but I barely have two days of work a week. I could probably work three day weeks the rest of the fall and it would be fine.
Main restriction on 2025 farm stuff is that I need to talk to F about the house. We had discussed the possibility of me going back to the farm at some point, I had guess four to ten year range, so we'll hit three instead. But we signed a contract that said we'd give the other person six months notice. So my plan is to give six months notice in the next few weeks and ask if she can refinance and at the end of those six months, I switch to a month-to-month rent until the farm stuff gets fully figured out.
All the things. they're happening.
I went to the parents on Friday after work last week and we (mostly my dad and I) spent the whole weekend planning things and working out staff, what we'd reduce on the farm, what we would need to do to get it all done. Schedules. Things I need to take over from mom (extremely incomplete list that mom thought was her to-do list so deleted stuff from it? I still don't understand. "I thought it was weird that it was labeled 'Mom transfer list'" okay mom)
Dad and I went over to the pines to look at the pavilion that is going to be the fourth picnic site. We're having two dedicated group outing tractor drivers plus a third floater in case of overflow groups. New reservation system is enabling this also to make up for lost public sales revenue. We will still be having public sales, but no free hayrides, no field picking of pumpkins and no scarecrow making on the first weekend. People don't come out as much for picking pumpkins off displays as the other stuff. Corn maze will be open since all of the work is already done and it's free money more or less.
We debated a ton about how much of the public stuff to drop but the fall business has a huge customer base that comes back every year, will put up with some nonsense and the distance to the farm, and are willing to spend a lot of money on stuff. So we don't want to fully shut down the fall business if I'm going to take the farm over next year.
It's looking increasingly likely to happen which is good. My end looks relatively easy, I need to set up a new business and do a lot of paperwork, but some of that I can hand off to a farm accountant. The much more difficult things will be on my parents end. I think I will enjoy running the farm, I like doing tedious things like cultivating several acres of strawberries all day. This winter I need to really dig into the financial and management side of things. The farm has definitely suffered in some ways by not having someone full time on the farm and in charge. My mom is full time but doesn't want to make decisions, so things don't get noticed or done or improved. Or even things like they only do maintenance on equipment when they pull it out to use it and then need to fix things. So if I'm on the farm full time and doing a good job, then I should be having someone look at equipment ahead of time. Weekly scouting. My dad never made the leap since he didn't want to shut down his pretty good computer business. I'm writing out goals (hire someone else full time by year two, buy an apple cider donut maker by year three, etc)
The property stuff that I don't want to talk too much about publicly is increasingly likely to end up with my parents acquiring a house and the pines even as admitted by the representative of the organization who were trying to sell it off (don't ask, it's all convoluted, should have answers on all three parts of the property within a year, probably (the decisions of people from the 1890s can come back to haunt/benefit you)). House has a built in office (for separating my personal and business stuff) and is fully livable if very 70s according to my dad. But even if not, my grandma's house is now empty (drama cousin just moved to texas) and I suspect my uncle would rent it to me for very cheap.
I am now doing all the group outing reservation stuff online with the new system with some questions directed to my mom about groups since she has a thousand things she keeps in her mind about the specific groups that come back year after year. I'm going down to the farm a lot this fall since I'm going to be the selling area manager/group outing coordinator on weekends. I'm going to miss one weekend probably for work related things. I won't make it down to NY Sheep and Wool unfortunately, so I'll miss the folks there :( But we just got off the phone about a huge set of group outings now scheduled for that weekend that if we can pull it off, will be really worth it.
I need to sit down with my mom this weekend and go over ordering and purchasing. Ordering so many things of various random stuff. Porta-potties, foam stuff for deco, cooking sticks, etc etc. I'm hoping to have most of the stuff off her plate by opening weekend since she hasn't actually really quit the farm, she's doing the weekday group outing stuff. She's very bad at actually saying no to my dad. They're very bad at communicating. I don't get it. hashtag boomers?
I'm sleeping a lot but not tired, which is great. I have energy, I'm solving problems. Need lots of brain breaks but that's okay. Work being so quiet is the only reason I think this is doable. If I had a vaguely normal workload, it wouldn't happen, but I barely have two days of work a week. I could probably work three day weeks the rest of the fall and it would be fine.
Main restriction on 2025 farm stuff is that I need to talk to F about the house. We had discussed the possibility of me going back to the farm at some point, I had guess four to ten year range, so we'll hit three instead. But we signed a contract that said we'd give the other person six months notice. So my plan is to give six months notice in the next few weeks and ask if she can refinance and at the end of those six months, I switch to a month-to-month rent until the farm stuff gets fully figured out.
All the things. they're happening.
no subject
It is possible that your your Mom had a little TIA (Trans Ischemic Attack, a kind of tiny stroke); which makes it harder for her to be organized. She may not know she had it, only that it is now hard or impossible to do things that used to be easy. Most older people do get TIA's at some point. My Mom had one that destroyed her ability to think critically about a problem. I'm still dealing with a couple of problems that happened when she hired a crew to put in a new water pipe and was unable to see, or unable to insist the crew deal with them. 10 years earlier she would have had no problem. Because such an event makes little change in a person's personality, and usually doesn't interfere with their daily life; it is often not very noticeable, except when they cannot do specific mental tasks.
Could you go over a list of the groups that come year after year and have her verbally tell you about them? She might be able to do that, and recall everything about them, but might not be able to get it on paper. Make a recording of the session so you can refer to it later.
P.S. I would be intimidated by the sheer amount of work you are facing in taking the reins of the farm. Go You!
no subject
We've been going through the reservations coming into the systems together, I control the computer and she talks about the groups and I write notes in the system. She's decently organized but gets bogged down in things and gets decision paralysis as far as I can tell.
It's definitely going to be a lot of work but I've got some planning time and this is about the best launch a new farmer could ever get. I don't need to make any big purchases like land or equipment yet, there's a huge customer base already, and my dad has kept really good records.
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I'm glad you and your Mom can work through some of it without any terrorists shooting up the place. ;) It is really interesting to see how our brains react. Has your Mom always been anxious? I think mine was. She was always terrified of having dinner guests, she couldn't believe that her cooking (plain and balanced well) would be acceptable to guests.
One of the great tools that a therapist I went to decades ago did was to give me the tools to break out of a "decision paralysis" loop. I am forever grateful.
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That is a lot!
Try to keep copies of the plans? One spilled coffee, etc.
Hope it all goes very well.
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Thanks, working through all the things.
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It's weird because I'm assuming control of a family business as my dad (age 82) ages out of it. He's not the retiring kind, but he's definitely stepping back and I'm stepping up. And I'm also involved in ongoing litigation involving family property, the details of which stem from decisions made by prior generations. Fun times. (On the advice of counsel, I am to treat every single scrap of written information regarding the matter as subject to discovery and, therefore, statements that I will have to defend/explain in court on cross. So, nothing in writing. So, no texts, no emails, no blogging. I'm toeing right up to the line in admitting that there's a lawsuit.)
You have my sympathies and I hope, in particular, that Eating Your Feelings is not a battle you have to face in your journey forward. (My pants are getting tight and I have got to make some changes on that front.)
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That's actually what my dad is planning, stepping back while I take over, he is willing to hand the farm over and work for me while still maintaining his computer clients as is. It's good for sure, he's great at problem solving and projects, not as good as longterm maintenance of things. So I could set him onto building new enterprises, quarterly equipment maintenance, researching things, etc. Spraying is a big one right now, I need to get a PA pesticide applicator license ASAP.
I've been bothering them to figure their shit out for years now because it's pretty clear the way things are going that it isn't working for them. So we're all figuring it out but with less planning than expected.
I understand the no written things! In theory the property thing shouldn't go to court but my dad has been having his lawyer go over things and send letters and there may be negotiations about stuff. But it's so weird and convoluted and I suspect none of the organizations will be able to find what I type but who knows for sure. But better not to talk about it until all resolved. I hope your things go as well as they can.
I tend to not eat when stressed, it's not amazing because I get really cranky when hungry and when I'm stressed I'm hungry but can't tell. Not great.