This is a little bit of a ramble…. Upon reflection of my work places so far, the challenge of any farm seems to top the craziest of all work places. There are cases of weather dependent businesses, family businesses, dysfunctional boards, bosses and customers, but farms add such a different set of rules and commitments.
In retail, we locked the door and went home. Customer service was key. Tom Elder was a stickler and I appreciate how much I learned from him starting at 14 years old. I never realized how much my office products knowledge would come in handy in my future jobs, especially unjamming the copy machine! Yet, as a worker, I was able to go home, go to class (still worked at McClelland’s in college) and leave things back at the store. Gary was particularly good at keeping us organized. Looking back, Gary and Tom were some of the best possible first bosses to have had.
My “career” has taken lots of twists and turns. I worked in a DC law firm as a college student for two summers, as nanny, at the MA State House, in a startup non-profit as a director, as an electrical apprentice, for a manufacturer, for myself, as a director of HR and operations at an architecture firm and who knows what else. I should say that the opportunity to work with my dad was something I would never trade. As an electrical apprentice, we installed the electrical system in 3 new houses. The work was physically hard and sometimes mentally tricky but I made me have such respect for what my father did to feed us and house us. I saw how he usually played more of a role of consultant with the contractor and customer in making decisions for the build due to his years of experience and knowledge. He could lay out a kitchen in his head looking at the space and usually have the cabinet sizes dead on.
That all said and done, returning back to the farm when my dad was terminally ill, I put boots back on to do a job that was historically comfortable. There is a calm at the barn in the quiet hours. The horses are majestic and reflections of their surroundings. The sound of them all munching their breakfast is calming like classical background music. But I digress.
Farms never have enough help, enough time or enough money to do things the easy way unless you are a mega, corporate farms or have an enormous trust fund. We have to prioritize the repairs by need and cost and also convenience. And then things come along and the plan gets changed. There are always six steps to get one thing done because projects are interdependent.
One of my favorite cousins was talking about the challenges of cutting crops this year due to the weather. He is trying to fit so much in a limited day now that we have hit fall. The dew is too heavy to start too early and the dew hits too early to keep going to long. He has a no win situation but to work 7 days a week. Repairs are made in the dark. The other aspects of the farming are done at the opposite ends of the crop work. The question is when the heck do we catch a break. He joked that our lives would be so much easier if there were no horses or cows.
Caring for other living animals in larger quantities makes the job 24/7. You don’t get to leave the farm mentally or physically as needed to recharge. We luckily have cameras in the barns at this point to try to help us get some sleep during foaling times, for sick horses and unfortunately needed security. Trying to leave for a vacation or time away even for farm related activities still adds additional pressures. It feels like you can never get out the door or your head can’t help but think about what is happening back at the farm.
For those with horses (and other critters) we add additional layers to a farm. I don’t deny that crops are challenging, especially with climate change, but they don’t find ways to regularly bleed and die. (Well, maybe die in my garden!) We joke that horses are always looking for ways to hurt themselves but I think it is partly due to their skinny legs holding up a disproportionate amount of weight. The sturdy pony seems to be a safer bet! The sleek show horse still needs turn out and bubble wrapping it with limited turnout and endless pampering keeps them from being mentally and physically healthy. Just look at the horse on stall rest and compare the mental health with the one with regular turnout. So to keep happy horses, you need to risk proper turnout. Of course this is where the weather becomes particularly challenging.
Now add to the horse farm the fact that most are based on customers of some sort. There are boarding, lesson, breeding and sale barns. The balancing act of doing right by our horses and doing right by our customers is challenging. Trying to create a safe environment for all riders is an important part of barn culture. This includes physical and mental safety of riders and the animals. Keeping strangers out of the barn that wander in from the street is as important as keeping barn etiquette to help those with less experience safe.
We live in a world where most things are accessible 24/7. Walmart is open. You can do your online banking at any time of the day. So we can easily lose track of the hour we are texting or the expectation of immediate gratification. We can read endless posts about the horrors of self checkouts with has resulted from staffing shortages but forget the same applies to stables. Most barns are facing limited staffing challenges and have a hard time competing for capable employees. As a result, the existing staff and trainers are tapped out.
Additionally, we are in an age where riders and people in general do not seem to understand the fact that time on task is imperative. This applies to riders and people in any workplace. Everyone wants to be the best or get to do the job of the senior architect. With horses, riders often want to make enormous strides without recognizing that time is the greatest differentiator. Our horses are not machines but need more time to process and learn than they need drilling. They are not an instrument where we can repeat scales over and over without consequences. Horses also are not the clarinet that can be boxed and not touched until the next practice. Being the trainer or coach that demands more involvement and self sufficiency by riders can be detrimental to the business, but it is really the only way that riders and horses can grow and learn.
It occurred to me that lesson stables have to balance multiple businesses in a way that is different from other business models. The typical stable is a farm raising and caring for animals, a school that meets the needs of riders and families and even sometimes a community entity that is providing a safe haven. And while you can’t necessarily have one without the other, running a horse farm is more in line with running multiple businesses. This doesn’t even touch on event planning for things like horse shows or the legal and business aspects that other businesses also encounter.
The push for dairy and crop farms to diversify back in the 1990s was a strategy that was encouraged through the government. But with more reflection, it really only added an additional business with a customer component such as a petting zoo, small shop or farm tours. This all leads me to question the concept of diversification that sounded like such a good idea to maintain open space back at the State House. Are we not just adding more to the plates of farmers by suggesting diversification? Are we not just making the days even longer? Are our farmers not just subsidizing their products by working far more hours then they are paid?
The historical government subsidies for some of our farmers were well intentioned but they don’t necessarily support the environment or the smaller farmers. I do question how we fix an enormous problem in our country that subsidizes soy production but doesn’t do anything other than send suicide hotline information with milk payment checks.
Now horses don’t feed the community like other kinds of farmers but they do feed the soul and provide an outlet that many kids and adults don’t find elsewhere. We are seeing stables close like dairy farms closed in the 1980s and 1990s. Like more traditional farms, this directly changes the landscape literally and figuratively. I will keep thinking of course but it also means that business planning needs to look a little different than we have done in the past. Oh wait… that means time for business planning.