The Good, The Bad AND The Ugly!

The Good, The Bad AND The Ugly! was Originally Posted on November 20, 2010 by lavarock

THE GOOD

I received a call this morning from Kamehameha Schools asking when they could come inspect my farm. I told the caller to “come on down”. As you know, this is the BIG inspection where I show them that I deserve to continue to live here (at a very reasonable lease rate). Our agreement was that I would clean up the property and fully plant it.

Along the way I cleared the land, added an expensive irrigation system and planted half with coffee trees and half with fruit trees. It has been a long and involved process, although in hindsight, it could have been a piece of cake. More on this later.

Dale came to the farm about a half hour after his call and I stopped mowing to meet him. He said that the change in the property was impressive especially after a previous visit where the coffee trees were hidden behind weeds and the property was a mess and fully planted. He used the expression “wow” more than once!

Although there are still some weeds, the area around the coffee trees has been cleared and I have started a periodic weeding. The fruit trees are in and fruiting. The irrigation system is fully installed along with drip lines and the trench is installed and mostly filled in.

The best news is that I am now “fully compliant” with our agreement and was only suggested to do a few minor things such as take down a few trash trees. They in no way effect my compliance! Thus, the leaseholder does not need to needle me nor inspect often during the next few years.

On a different subject, I was reading a recent Wired Magazine and saw “rant” listed in their September 2010 issue about people who Tweet and Facebook and only mention things that stroke their ego and make themselves look good. In an effort to ensure that I do not fall into that category I now make the following public:

THE BAD

On my farm, I should have planted the coffee in the lower acres near the house and the fruit trees up top.

I should not have wasted thousands of dollars on punching holes down below for coffee, then having to completely re do them years later and a cost of another $2,000.

Deciding to install the trench for the main irrigation lines and not find a way to drive over the drip lines instead was a mistake which cost me over $12,000!

THE UGLY

In 1999 I decided to get out of the stock market before Y2K and sold all my stock. I was not worried about the markets themselves, but that people would go nuts and take money out and drive the market down. I put all that money in the bank, then stupidly decided to buy one stock I “knew” would make me a ton of money. When it went down, I continued to ride it down and lost over $100,000!

So before you think I am smart and always right and just living the good life in Hawaii, also know that I am far from perfect and still learning from life.

In my own defense, I DO own 9 acres in Hawaii overlooking the Pacific, have pretty good weather, have two dogs who love me (as long as I remember to feed them) and have some friends who will always correct me when I get a bit too big for my “britches”.

Things could be a lot worse