Chapter 3

Day 3 as a Millionaire (Thursday, March 12, 2009)

Two solid nights of sleep in a row! That has been very unusual lately. I think this place is good for me; especially this luxurious bed.

I woke up feeling well rested and felt like joining the birds singing outside to greet the day. I took a quick shower, put on a clean T-Shirt and my jeans from yesterday. I looked at my watch as I put it on after my shower and discovered it was still only 6:30.

I decided to get out my computer and take advantage of the wireless internet to check on my Real Estate business. It has been 3 days since I checked my email. I had received several phone calls asking questions about my single listing but nothing that required any further action.

I first logged on to my regular office account. There was an assortment of emails regarding office business, as well as half a dozen from other agents promoting their listings. After noting and filing the messages I found relevant to my business and deleting those that weren't, I logged on to my Top Producer contact management system. I found that one of my contacts who had previously come to an open house has finally decided that their house is ready to sell and they are ready to commence their search for a new home.

I replied to their email telling them that since I was going to be out of town for a week or so, I would have my partner give them a call and get things started. They should expect a call some time today.

I reviewed the MLS listing notices that had been mailed out to potential buyers. I filed them as appropriate for potential follow-up later.

Finishing with those, I logged into my web site email server. There were three people who had requested one of my reports that are auto-sent when requested. I scheduled a trickle of follow-up email messages to follow an initial email thanking them for their interest in my reports and highlighting some of the additional services we could provide.

There were six email requests asking for more information about buyer representation. They had found homes of interest in the 'Featured Homes' page of my web site. I emailed them a response indicating that I or one of my partners would be contacting them by phone. I also emailed them a copy of my report telling them how to make sure their selected home was not taken by another buyer who was better prepared.

There were two email requests from people who had earlier requested a report on selling your home. They were now ready to talk with someone about getting their home listed.

Boy, those web site changes AA made were really effective. After many months of mediocre returns from my web site I had decided to bite the bullet and contract with AA, my web service provider, for their professional marketing program. They had finished our first upgrade on my web site on Tuesday. The lead generation I was seeing was very encouraging. In just a few days I had received more solid leads than I typically received in three months.

I entered the contact information into my PDA then synchronized with my online Top Producer data base. I then sent an email to my friend and fellow agent Terry asking him to give me a call when he could to discuss some referrals I had for him. I would not be able to handle these contacts appropriately in a timely manner. It would be better to receive a referral fee from them than to risk simply losing them to another agent ready to give them more immediate assistance.

I then spent about 20 minutes reading some industry newsletters to keep up-to-date on my industry. The next 30 minutes were spent drafting another local market report. I emailed it to my AA contact for editing and then placement on my web site. In the 2 hour consultation I had with them last week, they emphasized the importance of regular relevant updates to my web site in optimizing my web position in the search engines. So, I committed to adding material at least two times per week.

I had now done what I could for my real estate business from here and was ready for breakfast. It was now 7:30 and I could smell breakfast. As I was coming down the stairway, Melissa and Trudy came in the front door.

"Good morning Ladies. Isn't it a great day today?" I greeted them.

"Good morning Leon!" they responded almost in unison.

"It certainly is a great day!" added Melissa.

"You're all just in time for breakfast" we heard from the doorway to the dining room as Emma walked into the foyer. "Let's get to it before it gets cold."

There were five places set at the table with each plate covered with a huge Swedish Waffle covered with strawberries and whipped cream. Adrianne had just finished filling a glass of orange juice at each place and picked up the coffee pot saying "Who wants coffee? It is decaf this morning."

Everyone volunteered. So she filled five mugs and placed them as we all sat down to the table. Upon filling the last mug she sat down herself and we dug in.

As we began our meal Melissa and Trudy filled the other two in on the details of Trudy's hospital visit and tests. Melissa told about the insurance coverage they had without knowing it.

"I don't know what we'd have done if it weren't for Leon's help with that." She finished with.

Trudy shared her enjoyment of our shopping trip making sure to tell about the most significant of her purchases.

Trudy then excitedly brought up the topic of the new business she was going to start. She asked "Emma, can I practice my contact script on you?"

"Sure sweetie, give it your best shot!" she replied.

After her introduction and some give-and-take Emma stated "It sounds very interesting. I'll certainly be there for your PBR. Where are you going to have it?"

"I'll be there too" piped up Adrianne.

"I was wondering if we could have it in your recreation room. I'm sure more people from Grass Valley would come here than out to our farm" was her reply. You already have that huge TV with the DVD & computer hook up so Leon would not even have to set up his equipment. And you have room for 30 or 40 people too. I want to do it at 7pm Saturday night. Leon will be doing meetings for people in The Dalles all afternoon on Sunday and many of the people I'll invite will be attending church Sunday morning.

"I don't see any problem with that. At least I won't have to go very far to attend. Do we need to provide any snacks or anything?" She replied looking at me.

"Nothing but some pitchers of ice water really. If you have snacks it tends to distract people from the presentation." I replied. "If your hospitality bug insists, you could provide some light snacks to be served after the meeting is over."

Silence resumed as we attacked our breakfast. I even helped myself to seconds, and thirds, from the covered plate with extra waffles and the bowls of strawberries and whipped cream.

"What are you guys planning to do today?" Emma asked, looking at Melissa.

"Well Leon has asked for a tour of the ranch ... and we decided to have lunch at our place. I think Trudy has been missing her horse and will want to demonstrate her skill with the barrels too. After that, we'll just see what happens. Would you like to join us?"

"We have some housework and maintenance to do this morning, but if we're welcome, we may both join you for lunch?" Emma replied.

"Of course you're welcome. Be there about 12:30 and we'll have lunch in the sunroom." Melissa responded.

By this time we were all finished and decided it was time to go. We said our goodbyes and mounted up. I got in the 20 year old 1 ton dodge diesel dually they had taken to calling the farm truck. Melissa and Trudy led the way in their 10 year old Grand Am.

In no time we were driving up the lane. I could see the place much better now than in the dark when I first returned Melissa to her home. The fences were old but the wires were tight and the poles seemed solid. The home was a big old farm house that was probably built around the turn of the century. However, it appeared well kept with reasonably recent paint and a well kept yard with a white picket fence around the front yard. All the buildings were old but quite well maintained. The garage by the house was an oversized double with windows on each side. As they approached the garage the double door slowly rose to allow the car to drive in. There were a couple 4-wheelers and a couple snowmobiles on a trailer on one side leaving just enough room to walk around the car when it was in place.

As soon as the car stopped, Trudy bounced out and back to the truck. "Mom wants to know if you want to use the 4-wheelers or the truck to tour the ranch." She asked.

"What do you think we should do" I responded.

"Well, we could talk better in the truck, but it would be more fun to take the four wheelers. You can ride behind me while mom leads the way since we only have two of them."

"Okay! Tell your mom I want to take the 4-wheelers. Where does the farm truck go?"

"You can just leave it right here. We'll put it away later."

"Where does it go when you put it away?" I asked.

"It goes out in the shed by the barn. If you insist on putting it away now you can just follow me behind the 4 wheeler and start riding with me then." She replied impatiently and hurried back to tell her mom.

She came running back to say "Mom wants to change her cloths if we're going 4 wheeling. She said to come in the house and wait" as Melissa walked in the back door of the house.

So I shut down the truck and followed Trudy into the back door. We went through a large porch with a large deep freezer on one side and a wall of cabinets on the other. Beside the freezer was a shelf with an assortment of work boots, shoes, and winter boots. Through the porch we entered the old farmhouse kitchen. It was huge, with an old fashioned wood cook stove along side the cabinets with a modern flat top range and a Microwave oven above. There was also a dish washer and an extra large refrigerator. Across from the wood stove was a large wooden table in front of a set of 3 windows each about three feet across and 6 feet high. The windows all had storm windows on the outside. The ceiling was at least ten feet high.

"Can I get you a drink?" Trudy asked. "We have water, apple juice, and an assortment of soda pop."

"Do you have Mountain Dew?"

"Of course" she said as she pulled a couple glasses out of an upper cupboard, put them on the counter and went out to the porch. She soon returned with two cans of Mountain Dew. "You can sit down at the table if you'd like" she suggested as she put some ice from the refrigerator door into the glasses. She then filled each of the glasses with Dew. She had obviously done this before as there was just the right amount of ice that the glass was filled to within a quarter inch of the top when she emptied each can.

"Dad was born in this house" she said after taking a sip. "Uncle Perry was too. But Aunt Rachel and Uncle Quin were born in The Dalles because they were twins and grandpa did not want to risk any problems with them being born at home."

"Grandpa's dad took out a homestead on this place in 1910 and it has been a ranch in our family ever since. Dad always said we needed more land because this section would never support more than 150 head of stock. He never really had enough interest in it though to do much with it. If it weren't for mom and me, the farm wouldn't support anything."

Just then my cell phone rang. A look at the dial told me that Terry was calling me back. "Excuse me a minute please" I said as I headed outside while answering the phone.

"Hi Terry" I acknowledge his call.

"Uh yes. I got your email asking me to call you about some referrals?"

"That's right. I've got several leads that came up yesterday and I'm expecting to be out of town for another week. I was thinking about just referring them to you so that I don't loose them before I get back."

"I wouldn't mind just making the initial contact for you and you can finish up working with them when you return." He replied.

"Actually, it looks like I may be spending quite a bit of time away from home for the next few months. Rather than do a poor job of serving my client's I'd just like to refer them. In fact, if we can come to an agreement, I'd just like to make a practice of referring all my leads to you for the next few months."

"I have no problem with that either. What did you have in mind?" he replied.

"How about a referral fee of 25% for the buyers and 35% for the listings? You will usually have to spend more time with the buyers and some of them may not pan out at all while the listings are a lot more likely to pay off."

"That sounds fair. Is there anyone I should contact today?"

"As a matter of fact there is." I responded while pulling out my PDA. I read him the details as he took notes.

"There, that should do it. That's a total of 9 contacts. 3 buyer / sellers, 4 buyers, and 2 sellers. Just send me an email letting me know how your first contact goes with each of them. Could you set up the referral paperwork with Julie and email me a copy. I'll sign it, rescan it, and email it back to you."

"Wow! I'm going to be busy today. Thanks for the extra business. I'll email you daily with an update on how our contacts are proceeding."

"Thanks! I'd like that. And I'll just email you contact info for any future leads that come up. I'll let you go now" I returned to the kitchen as I hung up the phone.

"How many head of Stock do you have now?" I asked, returning to our conversation.

"Well, we have about 20 horses. Some are last year's colts. Others are older. I think our oldest is Cindy who is about 25 years old.

We also have 50 cows, 20 heifers, 22 steers, and seven bulls. The cattle are all purebred Hereford. 2 of the bulls are our breeding bulls. The other five are for sale next fall. Grandpa started breeding purebred Herefords about 16 years ago. He says he likes to see the red whiteface animals out on the pasture. He used to show some in the county and state fairs every year. There is a whole wall of ribbons and trophies in the guest room upstairs.

Dad used to talk about showing some after we bought the ranch, but he was never around to train them, or help us haul them in. Mom and I never had enough time to do anything like that. I raised a 4-H calf last year but at fair time we had a sick horse that mom had to take care of and Dad never showed up when he said he would, to come help me take it to the fair. If it weren't for grandpa, I wouldn't have even been able to enter in the Barrel race I almost won last fall.

Our field tractor is broke down right now. I think mom is worried about how we will handle our crops this spring. I think she said the transmission is broke. The tractor is really old but grandpa says it has never broke down on him before. Maybe she can get it fixed with the money she didn't have to spend on getting my eyes fixed.

The only tractors that work now are the lawn tractor for mowing the yard and tilling the garden, and the barn tractor we use for feeding the stock and cleaning up the manure."

"Are you sharing our life story with Leon?" Melissa asks from the doorway.

"I was just telling him about the farm" was her reply.

"Well let's get started on our ranch tour." She led the way out the door and into the garage.

When I headed for the truck instead she called out "You can just leave the truck there. We can put it away later."

"One thing I learned from working with my grandfather on his dairy farm was to always put away your tools when you're finished with them. He always said 'It takes no more time to do it now than to do it later'. I'll drive it out to the shop, park it, and then join you for the tour." I replied.

"Okay, if you insist." She acquiesced. "You should take this helmet with you now then. We always wear helmets when riding the 4-wheelers." She added while bringing me a bright blue helmet.

I fired up the old truck and drove it past the house to a long three sided shed with a row of farm implements in it. I could see several tractors, a wagon, and a collection of field work implements. Right next to the largest tractor was an empty slot. I assumed that must be the trucks home, so I turned and backed the truck into the empty spot.

I got out and looked over the tractor. It was an older John Deere 4020. From its styling I could tell that was built prior to 1972. However, it had been repainted somewhat more recently. It was clean and the tires were good. It appeared to be well maintained. The entire shed and the equipment it contained appeared to be well maintained even if it was all quite old.

"That is the broke down tractor" I hear from Trudy as the two of them shut down the 4-wheeler engines.

"We bought all this equipment from Tom's dad when we bought the ranch" Explained Melissa. "Steve always took excellent care of his equipment and buildings. He has continued to help me with that over the past three years. It bothered him a lot that his son had so little interest in the farm. I don't know if it is worth repairing this old tractor or not. But, I sure know that I don't have the money to buy a new one. The engine runs fine but when you put it in gear nothing happens. Steve says the transmission must be gone."

I put my helmet on and as I climbed on behind Trudy they both fired up the 4-wheelers. We drove on past the shed to a red hip-roofed barn. I assumed it was old from its style, but the paint was no more than 5 years old and the asphalt shingled roof was in excellent shape. The barn was quite big. It was probably 40 feet by 80 feet in size. We climbed off the 4-wheelers after they were shut off. There was a large rolling door which Trudy opened with very little effort.

The barn had a wide lane down the middle and each side had stalls that were about 12' x 12'. It was fixed up with hay feeders easily filled from a trap door into the hay mow and grain bins fillable from the center lane. There were 6 stalls on each side with a large tack room on the left at the near end and a feed room on the right at the far end.

"This is where we keep our favorite horses, or those we want to ride regularly or which may need special medical treatment for a while." Melissa explained. "Steve says that when he was small his father kept dairy cows in it but when he was a teenager the dairy cows were sold and the barn remodeled into a horse barn. This barn is actually older than the house is and is the oldest remaining building on the place." We walked through the barn to the far side and found a large working arena along with several smaller corrals with several horses munching on some hay or looking to us for some attention.

Trudy went over to one of the corrals and pulled a plastic bag out of her pocket with a number of apple slices in it. She held them out in the palm of her hand and the horse in that corral carefully nibbled them out of her hand. "This is Samantha. She is seven years old. She is registered Quarterhorse. Grandpa gave her to me when she was born. This fall we are going to win the junior barrel riding."

"She is a really beautiful horse and looks pretty fast" I responded. "I'd guess you have a pretty good chance at winning."

A couple other corrals also had horses in them. Trudy saved an apple slice for each of them.

We went back to the 4-wheelers around the side of the barn. One side of the barn had horizontally split doors from each stall into a series of narrow corrals; one for each door. The corrals were about 40 feet long by about 12 feet wide. The other side of the barn also had the split doors but there were only three corrals. Each corral was wider and two doors opened into it.

We climbed on and fired up the 4-wheelers and headed on past the barn into a pasture through an open rail cattle guard. The pasture was cropped very short and had about 15 horses in it. We rode out near the group of horses and stopped before they got too nervous.

As we got off and approached them on foot they all gathered around us looking for attention. There were several yearlings and several mares that were obviously ready to foal soon.

"I see a couple geldings but no stallions" I commented.

"We have the vet do all our breeding by artificial insemination" Answered Melissa. "That way we can choose the sires for each horse. And we don't have to keep a separate pen for the stallion."

"Sounds like a good idea. Keeping a stallion separate from the mares requires a very strong fence and can even be dangerous" I responded.

"I see that your pasture is pretty short. How long into the spring do you have to supplement them with Hay?" I asked.

"Depending on how soon it warms up and how much rain we get, we have to feed them to early June. Then by mid August the grass growth slows down again and we have to either feed them or move them into the cow pasture."

"How do you generate money from your horses? Do they make you any profit?" I asked

"They have not made a profit yet. So far they have only been a source of cash when we desperately needed it. We then take one, or more, of the horses to the sales yard in The Dalles and hope it brings enough money for our needs. We actually started with 30 horses when we bought the place. So you can see we have been cutting into our investment to keep operating. Tom had all kinds of ideas to make the ranch grow when we started. He lost interest in less than six months. I think it was when he realized there was some hard work involved in raising horses. We have generally received $1,500 to $2,000 for each horse sold. I think most of them should have brought closer to $10,000 if the right buyers were at the auction and if we weren't so desperate to sell."

"That's too bad. You'll need to figure out a better plan before you lose the whole farm." I replied.

"Let's go look at the cattle now" Trudy interjected as she climbed back onto her 4-wheeler. I climbed on behind her and we rode through the horse pasture to another gate. This time a wire gate that I climbed off and opened to let the two 4-wheelers through and closed up again.

The cow pasture was a mile long and half a mile wide. The cattle were all at the far end but spread out quite a bit. As we rode across the pasture I noticed the remains of several locations where they had been feeding hay on the ground. The turf was pretty much torn up into mud in each of these places. Again there was not much grass for the cattle to eat. Although it was still early in the spring, it was obvious that every blade that sprouted up was quickly pulled out by the cows.

We pulled to a stop near the middle of the herd of cows. Several of them came wondering over to investigate their visitors. Trudy warned "Keep an eye out for those bulls. They not really aggressive but sometimes if they can catch you not looking they don't mind giving you a good bunt to remind you who is the boss."

Melissa added "Steve always insisted that every animal on the place be dehorned. I guess he saw a man gored to death by an angry bull when he was a teenager. He doesn't want to see that again. We let the bulls run with the cows from breeding until calving. Then we keep them in a corral at the home site. We'll sell the young bulls this summer. They are almost two years old now"

"It looks like every one of the cows is pregnant" I observed. "I guess the bulls did their job last fall."

"Yes they did well this year! This is the first year we haven't had any unbred cows. I guess that's because in January we sold any cow that was unbred. We have the vet pregnancy test them in December. It's possible some of the ones we sold were bred late since the bulls stayed with them all winter but we didn't need any late born calves to take care of.

"The grass is really looking poor this year. Usually there is more growing by mid-March. But it seems that each year the pasture is getting later and later in growing. If we can get that forest service lease paid, maybe we can give our pasture a rest this year."

"At least the cattle have paid for themselves every year. This is the first year we have kept the calves through the next winter to sell them as yearlings instead of calves. We've usually been able to sell the calves each fall for about $400 each giving us a total of about $20,000 revenue. That's been enough to pay for their feed, supplies, and so on so that we did not have to invest any additional money into them. Now that we don't have Tom's income, I don't know what we'll live on. It would be great to be able to feed out these yearlings and sell them next fall. But we may have to sell them this summer to have living expenses and money to make payments on the farm.

From there we drove back across the pasture to a gate that opened to the lane that came in from the road, past the home site and along about 60 acres of woodlot. On the right side of the road was the hay field. It was just starting to grow with plants varying from 3 to 6 inches tall. We stopped again just before turning into the back entrance to the home site.

"We've been able to grow all the hay we've needed on this field. It is 150 acres and we usually get about 4 tons per acre in two cuttings. The weather usually gets too dry in July and August for any additional cuttings. Last year we were able to sell about a hundred and fifty tons extra we had. That's why we got away with not selling all the calves. We received almost $20,000 from that hay."

"Over on the left we have our cattle corrals. During the deepest winter we keep the cattle here where it is more convenient to feed them when the ground is covered with snow. There is also a working chute and loading ramp. By the looks of the grass in the cow pasture we may have put them out there too soon this year."

"What is that hill over there?" I asked pointing to a mound that was taller than the barn and covered almost an acre of ground.

"That is the accumulation of manure from I don't know how many years. Every summer we scrape out the corrals and pile it up there. We also empty the horse barn on that pile. Some time we're going to have to figure out what to do with it before it takes over the whole yard."

"Well that is the tour of the ranch. What do you think of it?" Melissa asked.

"I can certainly see why you fell in love with this place and would feel so bad about losing it. I can also see that it has an amazing potential to become a productive farm. I have noticed a number of things that could be done to improve the performance and profitability of the farm. As you've alluded to already, what this farm really needs is an injection of some additional capital and working funds to become really successful." I replied.

"Do you have any ideas to make that happen? Maybe it's my imagination, but I seem to hear in your voice an element of hope that you may have some ideas." She queried.

"I do have some ideas we could talk about. Perhaps we can come up with something that would work for you. Have you an office in the house where we could go have a discussion?"

"Let's go back to the house now and start our discussion. There is still an hour and a half before I need to start working on lunch."

We were still sitting on the 4-wheelers so they were just started up at driven back to the yard. Melissa drove hers into the garage and parked it. Trudy just stopped by the fence and turned hers off. I got off and as she started to get off, Melissa said "Leon had the right idea! From now on, we will put our tools away before going on to do anything else. Trudy, you know you won't want to come back out after supper to put your 4-wheeler away, so just park it in the garage where it belongs."

"Okay Mom" was her resigned reply.

"When you come in, perhaps you would like to spend some time calling people for your PBR on Saturday. It's not too early to get started on that." Melissa suggested.

"Right On" she replied with enthusiasm.

Melissa and I went in through the porch and the kitchen and continued straight ahead through a large dining room and into another large room. There was a large desk to one side facing the center of the room. Behind it was a large comfortable looking chair on castors. A large Plexiglas sheet covered the golden hardwood floors between the desk and a computer desk behind it.

Across the room from the desk was another large set of 3 windows like were in the kitchen. From behind the desk there was a great panoramic view of the barns and corrals. One could keep a pretty good watch over everything happening there from that comfortable chair.

There was another set of 3 windows across the room from the doorway. That scenic view covered another view of the home site as well as a view of the horse pasture. The remaining walls were covered with combination cabinets and glass door bookshelves. The lower three feet were cabinets about two feet deep with pairs of facing doors. A couple of them near the desk had what looked like side mounted file cabinet drawers. Above the cabinets was another 6 feet of shelves with glass doors. About half the shelves were filled with books, while the rest had an assortment of decorations and trophies. There were several spots where a few shelves were replaced with a large painting or photography which in turn was covered with a sheet of glass for protection.