Hanlon Hill Honey Farm

Report From Them That's Doin'

Three years ago, my back was covered with red rashes. Valium tranquilizers helped me through the day. My hands periodically erupted with psoriasis-like blotches for no reason (except "nerves"). Jeanne-my wife-and I brought booze home by the carload. And every morning I had to have my glass of prune juice, or else my hemorrhoids killed me.

All this, of course, was just my body telling me-in no uncertain terms-that I'd had enough of the federal bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. Jeanne and I both had "respectable" computer jobs and were pulling down "the long green" (as we used to say in the Defense Department), but our bodies were self-destructing. Our jobs had degenerated into episodes of mad paper-shuffling interspersed with periods in which killing time was the hardest part of the day. (Once, Jeanne spent an afternoon cleaning out halt her desk ... purposely leaving the other half so she'd have something to do the next day!)

We wanted out. We desperately wanted to find the light at the end of the tunnel ... but not the one marked "retirement". (A fellow employee once confided to me that he was "just killing time till retirement". I asked him how long that would be. "Five years," he replied. Imagine: He was killing the next five years of his life!) No, we just wanted to find a place in the country and settle down ... never mind our pensions.

Neither of us was country-bred, but we realized then (and still do) that there are some things which-deep inside-you know are true about yourself. It's just a matter of listening to your conscience. We finally started to listen when we picked up a book called Working Loose (Random House, 1972). Near the beginning, it asked: "Forgetting about money, what would you like to do more than anything else?"

Strange as it may sound, we'd never thought of life in those terms before! For us, it'd always been [1] work hard in high school, [2] get good grades, [3] go to a good college, and [4] get into grad school so your family can be proud of you ... then [5] walk into a "good" job, make lotsa bucks, and strangle in red tape for 30 years. I mean, isn't that what life's all about?

"No! No it's not!" we finally decided. "We're going to do what we want to do for a change ... and we're going to do it right now!"

Casting about for ideas, Jeanne and I took trips to Florida, Canada, and lots of places in between. Along the way, we felt out the landscapes, chatted with farmers, and checked land prices.

Dairy farming appealed to us at first ... until we found out how much capital the average dairyman has tied up in buildings, land, equipment, and livestock. (About a quarter million dollars is all!) We also briefly considered raising sheep, chickens, and rabbits. None of the ideas seemed suited to our wants and needs. Either the initial investment was too high, or the necessary know-how took too long to acquire, or the return on investment was too low.