Money, Money, Money and Reflections

Money, Money, Money and Reflections was Originally Posted on November 5, 2009 by lavarock

I started naming this blog “Money, Money, Money” which is the title of a song. Upon reflection at the end, I added “Reflections” to it (also a song title). You may not have noticed but many of my blog titles are musically titled. I used to be a DJ in a past life. Anyway, on with the blog!

I have been collecting unemployment for the past month, since my previous company let me go. They say I am eligible for rehire, but time will tell. In the meantime, I’m applying for jobs online and via resumes in person. I see a job in my line every once in a while, but it is perhaps 40 miles away or more. The cost of gas alone would negate the amount I would get.

I sent my tractor and mower up into town to be repaired; the tractor is under warrantee and the mower too, but the company fixing the mower is not the manufacturer. My trench-filling guy, Rusty, took them into town for me on his trailer. He is picking them up in town today and bringing them back here tonight and then will pick up my riding mower and take it with him. The mower is partial payment for filling in my trench. The trench is a bittersweet issue with me.

The way the new coffee area was laid out, the rows run horizontally across the property. Each row has a water drip line (the size of a finger, running across to the south side on the property. It looks like a comb with the ridge on the right and the tines pointing to the left. I need to drive the tractor down each row to cut the grass and weeds. When I get to the right side, I would have to cross the big heavy water pipes going vertically on that right side. To keep from running over the two 2″ pipes, I decided to have a trench dug, put them in and cover it up. Just digging the trench (through the rock) and then filling it with sand, has cost upwards to $10,000. It probably would have been cheaper to bury the last 20 feet of drip lines on the right and make my turns before the heavy pipes, driving over the drip lines instead. I would not have had to bury the drip lines as deeply and would have only had to dig 80 small trenches a few inches deep, instead of one big trench 1,000 feet long, 2 feet deep and 2 feet wide. The sand is expensive too to bring to the site. At least it looks nice.

So with the trench now mostly filled in (the final 2 zones will have to wait until next year due to cash-flow, I can fill it myself with my own tractor. Now that I’ll have the tractor and mower back tonight I can start cutting the rows again. Some of what I have to cut is very tall stuff, which looks like bamboo (also a grass). This stuff grows quickly and reaches 8 feet or more in height in just a few weeks. Anyway, this stuff is growing near the trench and I have been unable to cut it easily without the tractor and mower. In desperation, I had purchased another weed wacker and bought and jerry rigged a regular saw blade on it instead of those wimpy string things. That helped but still took forever. In a day or two I should now be able to cut every row and then hire some guys to weed between the trees for me. I seem to be getting a lot of morning glory type growth that twists around each tree and tries to smother what is below. As I cut the rows, this should diminish quickly and be more manageable.

The leaseholder wants to make an inspection to see how the trees are coming and is expected after the 15th. They came in April just the week before I had the trees planted. The property was free of all this growth because I had no water lines down. All you could see was rows of holes and two big areas with trees waiting to be planted. In the weeks after the last inspection, I had guys clean out each of the 1600 holes, fill them with dirt and a handful of fertilizer, the rolls of weed mat were laid out over the holes, an “X” was cut over each hole and the trees dropped in. Then the drip lines were laid out along each row and hooked up to the main water lines and tested under pressure.

In the months since then, many of the trees blossomed and I was able to do my first picking from these trees a couple days ago. I did not get a lot of coffee but still, a picking the first year is very amazing.

Since the trench is about done, I can now gather the last of my receipts and submit them for final payment on the contract. Briefly, in order to conserve out fresh water out here, some farmers agreed to not use county water and use rainwater instead for irrigation. The NRCS/USDA helped by engineering a system for me, and upon my successful completion of each section, repaid part of what I spent. The drawbacks are that under the contract I had, I needed to spend considerable amounts over a variable timeframe before getting my reimbursement. At the time, I had money enough to do that somewhat easily, but as the economy got worse and my bank accounts dwindled, it was very difficult to mnage the shuffling of tasks and money and still be able to eat. I picked a number from memory, but as I recall, this last payment is at least $10,000 to $14,000, so you can see that I really need to get this darn thing finished and submitted. Of course, part of the holdup on my part is that every foot of drip line and every connector and valve is listed on the forms or I don’t get paid for them. When I say every connector, realize that there are not 100 line items listing 1 connector each, still I have to account for a bag of 100 connectors.

This week is the Coffee Festival and I have had to pass on most if not all of the activities. In the past I have attended some of the events, the parades and the Kona Coffee Farmers Association annual dinner and auctions. I have even been auctioneer a couple of times. However, this farm must take front seat until I get this final section finished, the inspection done and receipt for the last leg of the project. I have mounting credit card debt that I want to pay down.

To get the farm to where it is today, I have (almost) maxed out the credit cards, taken a loan from my 401K and taken money from my IRA under a special IRS ruling that allows me to withdraw money early with no penalty (I just pay taxes on the income). However, with the farm and rolling depreciation and startup costs, even with the part time job I had, I should not have to pay anything.

In January, I get my next infusion of cash from the IRA and that will help me finish up other projects here at the farm. By then I hope to have a part time job again at least for the next year. After that I believe that the farm will help carry me for the most part. I worked my last job fro 18 years, was asked to retire and then used my retirement money to fund the farm. I took a part time job top carry me while I worked to make the farm viable and soon hope to retire again (as much as being a farmer lets you retire).

It has been a difficult time trying to work the farm and work in town 4 days a week. I would lose 4 days of farm work because by the time I got home each workday, it was already dark. At one point they changed my hours on Saturday from 8am to 5pm over to 2pm to 9pm. That gave me another morning to work on the far each week. Saturdays became a lot longer but I got lots more work done.

I do not yet have the roof directed into the water tanks and that will take a bit of time, engineering ideas and some money. I expect that can be done just after the beginning of the year.

All in all, I think I have passed the hardest part of this. Now that the trench is filled in, my mowing time will be cut in half and be much easier. I can spend time getting the second part of the farm ready to plant, but should not be pressured so much to get it down. All of my irrigation for the whole farm is in (it’s just disabled for the unplanted area). Once I get the rainwater diverted into the bottom tank, I can begin considering giving tours of the farm.

Since I took possession of the farm, it has changed dramatically. There were 500 macadamia nut trees in a forest of weeds. An old junked track sat down the driveway past the trees I labeled McDonalds. You could not see the property lines nor the ocean from anywhere on the land except for a peek-a-boo view from the house. Now as you enter the property you see the expanse of the Pacific with the house down below. As you approach the house and look up mauka, you can see many miles along the ridge of Hualalai volcano. I have to admit that the weather changed a lot here also. In early Google satellite views, the trees gave off lots of moisture and you would see the whole area cloud-covered. Now it is not, although Google seems to have reverted back to an earlier view of the farm after I cleared it but before planting it. They seem to automatically review the images and choose whichever one has the least cloud cover.

I need to start growing my own trees to replace those, which have died. I have had some die off during planting and while I was getting the irrigation going fully. Those problems should also be manageable now.

So there you have it, a review of where I am and why things have not quite gone as quickly as I had hoped. To do it all again would take very little time as I now know all of the stumbling blocks. Except for punching holes initially at the lower level of the farm and digging that expensive ditch, I have not made any really poor decisions and none that have cost me in missteps. Ohm I could have easily made major erros that would have cost me dearly, but I didn’t. To start fresh I could probably do it in a year instead of what, four?

Perhaps now I’ll have to time to sit back and reflect!