How Much is Enough

We are incredibly fortunate to live in this beautiful state of Maine. We are surrounded by beautiful bodies of water, forests, mountains, and even quirky, historical cities with exceptional opportunities for entertainment, shopping, and dining. I feel particularly fortunate to live where I live. Every day I drive my son to preschool I drive down the most majestic road that is lined with maple trees and stone walls and the top of the hill has a gorgeous view over a pond below. I turn down the next road and am greeted by a flock of turkeys crossing the road causing me to stop, look to the right and take in the views of Mount Washington.

In my attempt to “get my body back” after having our third son, I decided to strap the baby on me and take my favorite walk this morning down a road that connects a couple islands on a lake near our home. The walk is absolutely spectacular. It reminds me of my Aunt’s old home on Milton Pond in New Hampshire where us kids would be free to walk down to the store….alone…. and spend our parents’ hard earned dollar on candy, soda, and chips. Memories like those are so powerful. It’s a memory of how you felt and who you were with, not the stuff you had. During my walk today I was totally taken aback as I started to realize that this walk felt kinda sad to me. I couldn’t hear any birds chirping, no whizzing of boats, no peace at all. All I could hear were power drills, excavators, and some loud obnoxious industrial vacuum thing. It occurred to me, that every time I walk down here, I rarely even see anyone that lives or visits here. This is always the scene. It’s truck after truck of electrical guys, builders, excavators, landscaping contractors, etc with an occasional Massachusetts license plate on a 2019 Range Rover. One lovely thing about this, I thought, is that at least it keeps our trades people employed and well paid by the people who can afford these constant construction projects. But besides that, what a shame. Are we so ungrateful now that a property on the lake is not even good enough? Time and time again we see sweet little family camps ripped up like rubbish and replaced by monstrosities that are only visited 3 weekends a summer. The peaceful, lake life is replaced by constant buzzing and “progress”. It’s gross. I hate it. Don’t get me wrong, these homes are beautiful and I would certainly LOVE to be the owner of one, but really when is enough enough? Why do we always want more, bigger, better? We, too are guilty.

This was a 4 mile walk so bear with me, I did a lot of thinking…. In high school I remember only one “unit” we did in humanities. It must have been a powerful lesson because it’s the only one I never forgot. It was titled “Is progress always good?” Through my research and reading I decided on a definitive NO. Randy and I have always been very excited about our career in the the logging industry and the future that we aspire for our company. Recently, through several various conversations with one much wiser man than ourselves (aka Dad), one forester who noted that owner operators offer something special to each job, and one long conversation I obviously had with myself, I have been graciously reminded to slow down, be grateful for what we have, (it is DEFINITELY more than our parents ever had), put our heads down and keep working. Relationships with family, friends, employees, and clients are way better investments than more trucks, more equipment, and more debt. We aspire to be really freaking good at being little. Some times we need to be reminded of that. In the current season of business ownership, it proves again and again that it is very difficult to find employees. We are frequently tempted to keep up with the Jones’ in this industry but we know that when the owner is sitting in the seat there is an attention to detail that is fueled by the desire to foster trusting client relationships. Just like any business, we want clients to come back to us, we want them to tell their neighbors about us and the best way we can do that is to continue being the men on the ground at each and every job we do. ‘

We try very hard to stop looking around at what everyone else is doing and constantly stressing about how to get there. Current trends are begging us to switch to a cut to length system of operation with forwarders and harvesters which would come at a very hefty price tag, but we are good at what we do with the whole tree system, and ultimately it doesn’t matter which system cuts the lot, what matters is the experience of the person operating the machine. If we foster good relationships, the business will succeed enough to balance happiness and progress without losing our minds (or our shirts) in the mean time.