Through the United Order, the Saints under Brigham Young created a large amount of wealth for the Church and some of the Saints. By owning the property in "common" you are living part of the Law of the Celestial Kingdom, where we are to become "joint hiers with Christ", sharing in all that our Heavenly Father has....worlds without end.
Ten sticks bound together as one are impossible to break, while one stick or two sticks can easily be broken. I think it was a big mistake for the Tilton Hal Hinds farm to be sold, especially after he lived as a poor man his entire life to secure the property for the next generation. He could have sold it at one time for $800,000 to a $1,000,000. and had no debt on the property. He could have taken that money and purchased a new truck, a new pull behind travel trailer and spent his winters in Arizona like his sister Jean and her late husband Rex. This is how his cousins have used their earnings as well. Yet, he opted to stay on the farm, fight the cold and snow, and maintain his self with a calf crop and social security.
Great amounts of wealth take generations to build if you are doing it by yourself. Working together, you can each contribute small amounts and make improvements that will add value to the 75 acres. My goal is to finish paying off the 5 acres and give that to mom, who will then give it to you. Once paid for, it can continue to be used for rental income which can be used to maintain and improve your holdings.
It would not take long to have a debt free dairy barn, with debt free dairy cows, generating revenue. I would like to be able to contribute a debt free milk barn on your 35 acres on the land between the circle drive, just south of where the trash bin is located. This may or may not be possible, depending on my future earning capacity. I did get offered a full time premanent job as the meat manager at the Little Rock Air Force Base today and I believe I can once again reach a six figure income prior to the end of my work life...probably age 73. I am eager to plow extra earnings back into the farm to pay off the mortgage on the 5 acres and continue to make improvements.
Existing assets are the large number of rocks, timber and water. Not to mention the potential from a pecan harvest. There are about 6 acres of tillable land where the pumpkin patch was last year and this year combined...I want to sow this back to clover this fall and then harvest a hay crop in the spring and then plant corn on all of that. With corn at $8.00 a bushel, six acres unfertilized can yeild 50 to 70 bushel an acre or $4,000 to $6,000 gross revenue. Rex and Eva are starting to see the return on their cows with three cows and four heifer calves...in a couple more years they will have a nice calf crop to sell or put back into an enlarged dairy. The farm will carry 20 pairs in normal weather.
I am not sure that is a goal for Rex and Eva. It is good to get everyone talking and making choices on the direction for the place. Land around you will eventually come up for sale. It would be wise to consider if this is something needed, wanted or to be ignored, prior to then.
The best advice is to keep the property debt free, this will secure it from banks and government. Greed cannot be a part of the Celestial Law of joint ownership. Selflessness must rule the day. Your system of ownership must have rules, regulations, communication processes and standards. Properly done it will be a great example for your children to follow and everyone of them can feel enriched with knowing they have ownership in property of great worth.
I think the destruction of the chain saw and today's job offer, may be my queue to move on to a new adventure. I am ready to work one job and maybe find a good barbershop quartet looking for a change of lead.
That's exactly what Chris and I talked about. You have to provide better opportunities for the next generation to build family wealth. Hopefully our kids will have plenty of opportunities to make great monetary advances.
ReplyDeleteSome of the many task that I have been faced with this year at work has made a large impact on my business management understanding.
ReplyDeleteI worked with many large corperations out side of AT&T in the last 6mo. or so as a business consultant for Empire Electric Company, and the Joplin Globe News paper. I was very successfull in increasing reveune and life time value of their business by a large margin almost 20% increase in reveune.
My tactics are smimple almost basic to the business world but those two companys were so overwhelmed with the tasks they had infront of them that they were to blind to see the quick and simple things that could changed to improve their businesses.
One of my favorite qoutes is; "what gets focused, gets improved". never a more true statement spoken. I would like to make a suggestion to the family and ask that everyone creates a list of projects they know need done on the farm, and a few things they want to see done. We could spend time voting on these like we had discussed on the farm or we could measure the benifits and priorits based on Highest priority items with the lowest amount of effort. those things should be handled first and in order for us to improve those things we have to set time bound goals and forecast completion dates along with a accountability system to keep us honest and motivated.
I am out of time, I have a training to attend I look forward to seeing how soon we can role this out. I for one know that for me a high item with low effort is cleaning up the farm. I am committing to 1 weekend a month to farm clean up.
One of the main priorities I see that has to be done is reparing the entire perimeter fence. The fence that's there has probably been there for over 100 years and the only thing keeping the posts up is the wire, or over growth. It would nice to have a fence that is "horse high, bull strong, and hog tight". That would be an expensive project, but if we can use the resources on the farm, like all the timber on the back 40, we could use wooden posts instead of metal ones. We could have any animal we wanted with that kind of fence; sheep, pigs, horses, cattle, goats, whatever. What do you all think of that?
ReplyDeleteI like Ryan's idea of prioritizing projects based on cost and benefit. I think the legal aspect is the most important issue at hand and should be a top priority. I have not heard from Russell or Reed on any of the issues but Rex Riley Keirsten Ryan and I seem to be all for this. I need each of you to answer the following questions:
ReplyDelete1. Are each of you willing and able to pay $80 a month so that next October the legal plan for the Hinds Farm can be finished? If so the plan is to collect 1,000 from each family so we will have 7,000 to hire a lawyer. If it costs more we can wait a little longer. If it costs less we can use the excess for starting projects. If you are able to pay the 1,000 up front and would be more conveinant for you that is fine. I don't think we should set the account up as of yet. The only reason I say this is because there is no trust set up yet. In the future a direct deposit would be nice to set up into the family trust. This would eliminate the hasell of trying to feel like one sibling has to press another sibling to collect money. I choose the 80 per month because I believed it will not break anyone's pocket book and if it is a struggle it is an attainable goal. We could change the amount to less or more after experimenting with 80 a month for a year. This brings me to my next question.
2. Which of us should be responsible for collecting and holding the dough?
3. Does everyone agree this should be the first thing we do? I know like Riley says that the fence should be done and this might be a good second project. I just done think it would be good for the fence or barn or whatever to start until the legal aspect is taken care of. I'm not saying we have to wait either. I'm asking for everyone's opinion to get on the same page. Once we are then attack these ideas.
In closing I felt the light dim a little today on this overwhelming task, then I watched a video I took while at the farm on my iPhone and feel rejuvenated. The video was taken of Riley playing the banjo around the fire while mom and others we there with kids. I think the good feeling I got was not just love of family but the spirit talking to me that It feels right. Look inside yourself for strength. Put down the Nintendo or mouse or phone for more than 10 minutes and think about the future.
Just a thought....If we want to get things rolling now maybe we can have all the land put back into mom's name and then if she dies have it go to Robert that way we don't have to worry about any legal issues that may need resolved that we are unaware of now. We will have ample time to set up the proper trust, LLC or whatever.
ReplyDeleteAnother thought that I've had is maybe we should consider holding off on the clubhouse for awhile. We may want to see if we can make a few improvements to the existing farm house to make our annual gatherings more accommodating to the large group. This would save us sooo much money in the long run. We know that Dad and Mom plan on giving us that land ultimately anyway. It would save costs on running electricity to a new location, water lines,septic and possible propane. We could ultimately turn the current farm house in to the clubhouse we are all wanting. Chris is extremely knowledgeable on remodels and is willing to do a lot of the work himself. I now first hand that remodels are cheaper than building new. We've done both and i'm actually happier with my remodeled home than I was when we had a new home built. As far as what should come first I think the fence is a good point, but I feel we should focus on cleaning off the side of the dam to avoid future issues as Robert expressed while we were at the farm.
I am fine with this idea Keirsten. We need to get everyone on the same page.
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