{"id":6472,"date":"2013-10-02T15:52:43","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T19:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/?p=6472"},"modified":"2015-09-30T21:33:02","modified_gmt":"2015-10-01T01:33:02","slug":"the-pumpkin-farmer-and-the-plumber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/the-pumpkin-farmer-and-the-plumber\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pumpkin Farmer and the Plumber"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: I drove to Ventura again today and got thinking about this story of the Pumpkin Farmer from two years ago. Decided it was worth a revisit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yesterday I drove to Ventura where my sister Margaret lives. I\u2019d been assigned the task of finding a vacation rental apartment in Paris for our sibling outing next spring and didn\u2019t know where to begin. Margaret agreed to coach me since she\u2019d already tracked down our Amsterdam accommodations.<\/p>\n

In the springtime, this drive reminds me of Ireland because the craggy hills are so lush and green. Right now they\u2019re festooned in shades of beige and brown, but it\u2019s still a pleasant drive.<\/p>\n

The road goes through an agricultural area with two small towns on the way. There are orange and lemon groves alongside a little red schoolhouse, a honey tasting place and small stands selling produce.<\/p>\n

Something had been added since I made the drive a couple of weeks ago. The produce places now had big displays of pumpkins for sale. I passed a field where big fat pumpkins laid waiting for buyers to come and pick them.<\/p>\n

That got me thinking about the folks who grow these autumn favorites. If you\u2019ve taken my Making a Living Without a Job <\/i>seminar, you may even recall my talking about pumpkin growing as an example of a seasonal business.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a pumpkin grower, I point out, you don\u2019t have much cash flow for most of the year. Then around the first of October, millions of us are suddenly eager to go out and buy a pumpkin or two.<\/p>\n

A cash flow avalanche for the pumpkin farmers ensues.<\/p>\n

Then it stops until the next pumpkin season rolls around.<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s not just pumpkin farmers who deal with long income gaps. Anyone who grows crops learns valuable lessons in patience while dealing with uncertainty of every sort.<\/p>\n

When I passed another pumpkin patch on my drive, I began thinking that all of us who are self-employed could learn important lessons that we could apply to our own undertakings. There\u2019s no picking if we aren\u2019t planting, I thought.<\/p>\n

As I was musing on such things, I glanced in my rear view mirror and saw a large black pickup truck advancing rapidly in my direction. Since I have a policy to avoid tailgaters, I slipped back into the right lane and he soared past.<\/p>\n

Even though he was speeding and driving aggressively, I couldn\u2019t help but notice that his rear window was painted with a large ad for his plumbing services. “Hey, Dude,” I wanted to yell, “you’re driving a billboard.”<\/p>\n

I made a mental note never to use his services.<\/p>\n

The Impatient Plumber. The Patient Pumpkin Grower.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it amazing how much you can learn about running a business just by noticing how others are doing it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: I drove to Ventura again today and got thinking about this story of the Pumpkin Farmer from two years ago. Decided it was worth a revisit. Yesterday I drove to Ventura where my sister Margaret lives. I\u2019d been assigned the task of finding a vacation rental apartment in Paris for our sibling outing next…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[27,353,1332,735],"class_list":["post-6472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-postcard-from-barbara","tag-growing-a-business","tag-patience","tag-pumpkin-farmers","tag-seasonal-business","jsn-master"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6472"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6794,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6472\/revisions\/6794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joyfullyjobless.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}