Skiing and building houses
Wow, this winter is now seriously getting annoying. It has been annoying, but now we have another week of arctic temps, freezing rain, light and obnoxious snow cover. From my homes in Phoenixville PA the whole way up to Fremont and Parksville NY, just obnoxious. Really glad I only have a few homes going since progress would have been tough. I’m tempted to just shut it all down for a week - something I’ve never done - just to let this final week of winter roar through. In 8 days, it looks like we get some reasonable winter temps. I got home from Vermont and my entire home and building territory is covered with 2” of ice. Didn’t think I was going to make it up the driveway.
Up in Vermont, for our 14th or so annual sojourn with a revolving set of family members. Started in 2015 or so in Stowe, and migrated to Killington in 2020/2021. For the various skill levels of skiers that accompany us, Killington is the better mountain. More diverse terrain, bigger mountains, less over the top in terms of approach to skiing/resorts, etc… But expensive - lift tickets for a single can approach $200 for a holiday weekend. Me, my brother, wingman nephew, Lucas and two of his friends.
It was a tale of two cities up here - Friday and Saturday clear as the eye can see and hardly a whisper of wind. Great conditions with some fresh powder. Late in the day a predicted storm blew with low visibility and snow, which turned into a ski-able sleet. Actually a great day of skiing. We are ski in ski out like ballers do, but up and down Vermont - from Stowe to Killington - driving into the resorts was a nightmare with the snow/sleet coming down, slickening roads, and causing traffic havoc with no solution. Many people didn’t get to the mountain till lunch or later. They were calling for the possibility of a major snow event, but the wet sleety snow took a lot of that thunder away.
But overnight, winds whipped up to 50-6 0mph, rattling our 1980’s chalet to the core. Lucas and his two friends are hoping to get some skiing in this morning, but I’ll let that up to them to test the elements. You never know with kids - if they don’t want to let it bother them, sometimes they are immune to it all. On the same hand, if they want to let something bother them - like being tired when it’s time to study, nothing can be more troublesome. Since I’m finishing up this post a few days after the weekend, I can report we didn’t ski, and did not have a lot of fun packing up 7 people and a van in high winds and whipping snow.
My son is quite the skier now - but that brings another set of worries now that he's zooming down the mountain at 60mph, whipping in and out of trees and launching off jumps.
I’ve added some team members to the office, which is exciting. I’ve been searching and seeking on how to reinvent after my main person left 2 years ago. I scaled up, I stayed the same, I scaled down. Grew, shrank, rinse, repeat. The jobs I was looking to fill are good jobs, paid well, serious benefits and challenging in a good way. Being a small office, the mojo and culture of the place, as well as the person, is important. Hiring is never easy but one thing that is different this time around is that I know exactly what I’m looking for - with well-defined positions and job descriptions. It’s tougher than you would think, describing a position at a small business with its fingers in lots of different pies. Cross-talented, adaptable, learnable. So I’m excited. Trying to dial in the business to something sustainable to me and my employees without conquering the world everyday. Working hard to figure out how many houses to build, and other assorted revenue streams, to get to that magic number.
The magic number to me as I ride off into the sunset in yet some undetermined fashion is defined as salaries, fixed expenses, benefits and as important to me as any, the ability to continue to payout handsome 401k matches, profit shares, and even a pension we have. I’m proud of a lot of things this company has provided to a lot of people, but to spin off profits consistently to me and others in the magnitude of a quarter million dollars a year comes close to topping the list. It’s pretty much unheard of.
Catskill Farms has always been profitable. Sometimes wildly profitable. Over the next 5 years, I’m happy with finding that number that allows us to retain employees, create a flexible and hard to compete against workplace, and conjure enough profits to pay our benefits. I’ve already got 2025 figured out, so that leaves me with over a year to get started on 2026. One thing Catskill Farms has never been is able to create those profits without me leading daily from the front. As we pivot a little from the precarious position of building a bunch of homes paid for by my lines of credit, to more client-driven pay as you go situations (much more common), a lot of things are more possible, since the profits on the former are driven by my push and effort and the need for speed, and the profits on the latter is just moving methodically through a building project, which is something we should be able to do.
When you got a gallon of maple syrup from Jeff Bank for Christmas, you take it with you whereever pancakes may be. Have syrup, will travel.
Below, up on the highest peak lodge, brother to right, nephew in background. He's got a puffy check, burgeoning black eye and fat lip from an interaction with a tree.
