Life on the Farm
Timeliness. So much in agriculture is timeliness. It needs to rain on time. It needs to warm up on time. You need to plant in time. You need to control pests in time. You need your staff to show up on time. You need to harvest in time. It's all timeliness. Weekly planning. I've been re-reading the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. One of his tenants is planning, specifically moving from daily planning to weekly planning as a way to look a little further ahead. Dad and I have been working on getting a better handle on fruit ripening by weekly planning and daily check-ins on goals for the day to allocate people and equipment with fewer hassles and hold-ups.You can't plan alone. I've found that my benevolent dictator style of management is great for some things, but poor for an expanding business with a lot of moving parts. Dad and I cant do it alone and we can dictate terms to each other, so we have to work together. They benefit is that my extra maze workers and Fun Park landscape equipment can make the blueberries look nice when Dad's guys are on irrigation. We only need one backhoe, that gets scheduled in advance. We can increase our timeliness, but prioritizing communication and weekly planning.Business lessons on the farm?! This might all sound a bit odd from the homey, warm, fuzzy Maple Lawn Farms fruit newsletter. I do think it's important to keep it real for you, our guests. Make no mistake, farming is a business. If we don't behave like real, high-level business people, we don't get to drive tractors and entertain in mazes. My Dad is a real business man who handles financial challenges and risks that would make a hedge fund manager cringe. It's all for you. We're serious about business, so we can have fun with you and provide the family enjoyment opportunities you love. Dad and I made a serious choice for our business after Mom died that we were going to grow our fruit and fun products directly and specifically for people who wanted to come to the farm to pick them. We went smaller and direct, instead of bigger to wholesale to Wal-Mart.Thanks to your patronage and participation in our experiment in "going local", it's working. Our goal is to sell everything directly to the people who will consumer it. At the same time, you get to come here, see Dad and our staff who live right here, on or near the farm, and know your dollars aren't going to Timbuktu corporate muckity-muck.We still need your help spreading the word as much as we do picking the fruit! Our work here has only just begun. As always, help us spread the good word of fresh, local fruit to all your friends via email, Facebook and, of course, Face-to-Face!See you soon on the farm,Hugh
