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Are you out of time?
By Michael Fisher Area Livestock Extension Agent, Golden Plains Area Colorado Recently, I have frequently found myself contemplating life and subsequently death; for one does not exist without the other. Funny where a night of staring at the ceiling tiles of an emergency room will send your mind for the near future. Actually, my contemplation began a few weeks prior to my recent ER visit. An early morning phone call had alerted me to the fact that my dad was in the hospital following a minor heart attack, his third. Fortunately, dad must be working on the cat theory of life (nine lives) as opposed to the baseball theory (three strikes). In reality, this story starts a few years before that. I had the unfortunate opportunity to be an outside observer looking in as a family tore itself apart. The family patriarch had built a very impressive dairy and hoped that his sons would attend the local land grant university to get degrees in dairy science and then return home to help with the dairy. The older of the boys, felt that his dad had done fine without a degree and knew that he would always have a place on the dairy. So he decided not to go to the university. The younger son was anxious to go to college. However, he wanted to take classes in civil engineering. But his father put his foot down and demanded that his son get a degree in dairy science. Four and a half years later, he came home with a crisp new diploma declaring him a dairy scientist, and a blushing bride with a degree in business and finance. The family patriarch quickly put them both to work doing the same type of tasks as his minimum wage labor, as well as the older son and his wife. At no point would the father share his business plans for the farm or let the kids have a voice in the dairy's future. It was obvious to all that dad planned to live forever. After three and a half years of toil on the farm, both the college grad and his wife had about had it with dad, the dairy, and each other. The elder son, on the other hand, was in seventh heaven, living out his life's ambitions of working on his father's dairy. One morning the family patriarch headed out to make hay. We will probably never know exactly what happened, but somehow or another he became entangled in the equipment. He had never planned for the farm's future without him or even considered what the boys wanted. The first son hoped to continue the dairy. The younger son couldn't wait to leave the farm and go back to the university for that engineering degree. His wife had also made some plans and put her business degree to effective use. The grass seed had not hardly sprouted above her father-in-law's grave before she had filed for divorce and announced her claim to have the dairy sold to get her share. The last that I knew, the older son was driving a feed truck at the local elevator, the younger son was back in school, and the dairy was quickly being built over by a subdivision with the ex-daughter-in-law as one of the investors. It was sad to watch that iconic family take such a plunge over a period of a couple of months. However, I learned a valuable lesson from it. I shared the story with my sister and brother. They both found it to be a disturbing story and we decided that one of us should discuss it with our Dad. That fall I found myself back home for a friend's wedding. During my visit Dad and I spent an afternoon sitting on a cattle feed bunk talking about the family farm, what he hoped to have happen to it once he is gone, and what my siblings and I felt. Dad had also been concerned about it but did not know how to begin the conversation. There is no doubt that it was an uncomfortable subject for both of us but it was the smart, business thing to do. Now we have an idea of how we will deal with the farm when the time comes. An idea that all of us, including Dad, had input into. Each year, when all of us are home for the holidays, the plan is updated with the farm's current situation. Do you hope that your operation will continue on after you? Have you discussed a farm/ranch transition plan with your family? Or if not with a family member, have you discussed it with a trusted lawyer, banker, or friend? Do you know what your family will want to have happen? Do you know what your family's goals will be? These are tough questions to answer. They involve a lot of pride and emotion. It is not easy to start this conversation. I know; I've been there. However, as my recent phone call from Mom and my more recent visit to the ER painfully remind me, there is a harder question to answer. Are you out of time? Date: 12/12/07
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