What a busy six weeks! Christmas included seven celebrations - with about 9 hours in the car - all packed into a six-day stretch, then Ben's birthday was Dec. 30, we were very happy to have a "boring" New Year's Eve, and we are in the midst of celebrating Rose's 4th birthday this week, hosting about 40 people for a party on Sunday that will celebrate five family birthdays that all fall during January.
I can't let the month slip by without recognizing a HUGE celebration - the one-year anniversary of Ben and I starting our own farm business.
One year ago, Ben and I were walking into our bank to set up a business checking account. We hemmed and hawed over the name of our farm, but time ran out before we could come up with anything good. BN Acres...or was it B&N Acres? No really, we mix it up all the time. We set it up as BN Acres because it was easier to say, but B&N Acres makes more sense so that's how a lot of our vendors set our accounts up. Fancy name, huh? (B=Ben and N=Nicole)
Our humble beginning includes borrowing money to start the checking account and for all of our input costs. We borrowed...and borrowed...and borrowed some more. Six figures by the time we had all of our expenses for the year.
We spent over $100,000 without making even a dime until 11 months later. Most people would call that stupid. We call it farming. We also lovingly refer to it as monopoly.
I know that money is all a matter of perspective - what seems like a lot to some might be pocket change to others. To us, the financial investment this year has been a game-changer. It used to be easy to be a backseat driver for the farm, but it's much more humbling to make these farming decisions when its our future hanging in the balance. Will the new technique we're considering actually work? Will we be able to pay all the farm debts? Will we have enough to support our family? We know we're feeding a lot people with our crops, and the four of us holding hands around the table to say grace is our daily reminder of that.
We grew up a lot this year. One more big step in adulthood.
