Homestead Business Success Stories

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Sue Gregg from Burlington, Vt., found a way to make extra money by starting her own rototilling business. PHOTO: FOTOLIA/RA3RN

Sue Landfield from Neward, Mo.:  

Back in early 1971, some would-be back-to-the-landers in Quincy, Illinois who were looking for a moneymaking scheme happened upon an article in THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS ® about selling lemonade.

The write-up, "An Ideal Way for a Commune to Make Heavy Bread" motivated one of these folks — Kent Kattelman — to build a portable 8-by-8 foot stand of plywood and 2-by-4's. (See, too, MOTHER's article "The Lemon Tree.") 

The lower four feet of the walls in Kent's movable booth are plywood, and screening runs from the wood on up to the stand's roof. There's a counter in the front for transactions, and one in the rear to hold all necessary paraphernalia. Such a stand, put together wholly with screws and bolts, can be knocked down by two people in half an hour ... and fits piecemeal into an eight-foot pickup bed.

During the summer of 1971, Kent — with his wife Michelle and friends Rod Pool and Jeff Walz — sold lemonade at the local county fair and at several smaller festivals, and found the enterprise quite profitable indeed.

I entered the scene that fall, when we all talked of buying a farm and establishing a tiny community (we were five adults and one child at that time). And how did we figure on financing our dream? With lemonade!

Our initial expenses were minimal: The stand had cost about $150 to construct, and the additional equipment we bought came to only $100.

The business has now flourished for six seasons, and each year of added "seniority" has enhanced our standing with both fair officials and thirsty patrons.

We follow a kind of assembly line procedure for washing, quartering, and squeezing the lemons, measuring the sugar and water, etc., which culminates when one of us hands a buyer his or her iced beverage in a 16-ounce disposable tumbler.

While we need six workers during rush hours, three can handle the operation for an average flow of people. The entire process is entertaining to watch, and we add to our customers' fun (and our own) by maintaining a steady stream of friendly chatter.

In our first two years, we made sufficient profits to pay for a 40-acre farm here in Missouri, and we've since used our lemonade income to finance the buildings on our land.