I still haven't scraped away all the old posts, but today the focus changes. After failed forays into peanuts, being talked out of large-scale satsuma farming, and a silly conversation with a state conservation officer about turning the whole property into some sort of refuge for gopher tortoises and native weeds, we've focused on Wyldswood becoming a wedding venue.
The cows will stay, of course. People like cows, and the cows seem to like life at Wyldswood. Peg's official motto for most of them is, "A great place to grow up, if not to grow old." I reckon that's pretty much every cattle ranch.
But lately the notion appears to have taken hold that there's something special about getting married on a farm. Maybe it's a perceived return to innocence, or the atavism that's inherent in an eons old tradition that's fallen on hard times lately, this whole marriage thing. Regardless, Peg's eye has already made Wyldswood into maybe the prettiest spot in the whole Big Bend. Why not share it, and start a business that doesn't involve surgery or suing people?
At the outset, there's been a division of labor between us. Peg's already immersed in the aesthetic side of the venture, stomping around the property in her cactus-patterned boots and pondering important questions like whether we need a pergola over on the other side of the pond for newlyweds who prefer that backdrop. She's aided in the design process by Judson and Dio, the former a native of Taylor County who returned to his hometown with his new husband after years in the big city. The three of them seem engaged in a constant conversation via text over color palettes, marketing, catering, and half a hundred other things we never much thought about before now.
On my side of the ledger lies most of the drudgery of starting a business--getting us a great accountant and a tax ID number, working out the elements of a business plan regarding the cattle, and setting up a limited liability company so we can keep separate books for the business side of the farm. And, of course, wringing my hands over how to pay for the substantial front-end investment required to pull this off.
Of course, it's not been all green eyeshade work on my end. I've gone shopping and found us an antique truck, because wedding parties oddly seem to care about having their photos taken next to old pickups. We learned this through hours of perusing rural wedding venues online, and making note of the elements that seemed to repeat themselves. Old trucks are pretty much de rigueur.
So we bought one. I'll devote a whole blog post to that adventure sometime.
We also went looking for an old tractor--we already have two tractors, a well-worn Kubota for working in the more unkempt corners of Wyldswood, and Peg's new John Deere for spaces less likely to scratch it with an errant tree branch or dump it into a gopher tortoise hole. But neither is all that photogenic, and again these wedding parties seem to seek photo ops with old country stuff, sort of a matrimonial Cracker Barrel experience.
I thought I had one lined up in Wisconsin, but the seller's gone radio silent on me for some reason. Then as we were driving down the highway from Tallahassee the other day, we spied a nearly identical model on the side of the road, "for sale" sign half-buried in the grass.
It needs a little love, and P's pointed out that the unkempt property on which it sits suggests owners who weren't all that assiduous about taking care of the old girl, but if it runs and the price is right perhaps we can clean her up and I'll have something on which to putter around the property.
Vehicles aside, the main focus right now is on the buildings inside the curtilage. The interior of the main house is finally repainted, and the crew showed up with their trailer last week to chisel away the mantel lip in front of the fireplace, an artifact of when Peg first bought the place and the contractor inexplicably left off the northernmost five feet, creating a trip hazard where the bottom of the stairs spill into the fireplace mantel.
And that coral exterior will be next to go. 2005 just called and asked for its palette back.
The larger project will involve transforming the barn into a reception venue.
The current barn is really a barn, with an enclosed center space and two open pole barns on either side to park equipment and building materials for repairs around the property. But it's way, way too small for 150 folks to pack in for a catered supper. And there are no bathrooms, or a caterer's kitchen.
So our old, dear friend George has agreed to come off the bench to help transform it. Seeing his old white pickup out there the other morning, building forms to pour concrete in the eastern pole barn bay, warmed my heart. It was just like old times.
Hard to believe, but once he and his buddy Jason are done out there, the little green utility barn will be transformed into this.
Of course, closing in those bays means the tractors, the gator, the zero turn, and lots of other junk (including Issac's beloved 1994 Lexus sedan, his first car, that's been crumbling in the Florida heat out there for a quarter century) will need a new home. The replacement pole barn should be finished out in the middle pasture by next week.
Lots going on, exciting times for the two of us and the family of people who are helping to make Wyldswood an inviting place, and as special to the new friends who'll begin their married lives there as it's been to us.
Comments