Fate has forgotten how to count.  That’s the only thing I can think of.  Because bad things are supposed to happen in threes.  And each time I get to the end of another round of threes, a new round of threes begins. 

It started with last week’s dramas — the water system failing, shocking the well and turning our water turbid, having to cancel the bnb guests and close the cafe.  

The next week started with me waiting for the water technicians to show up while fielding calls from the girls at the farm.  The sheep had gotten out and one ewe had badly torn her side open on some wire fencing.  Then came the five hundred dollar vet bill.

And then the water tech finished up, and our water was no longer brown.  It was pink.  

We worked through all that just in time to welcome our next Bnb guests.  They’d been on vacation in the area, and we were to be their last stop.  Word about them traveled through the hosting vine. 

“High maintenance.”

They wanted early check-in.  Then, after Eileen got the space ready for them, they showed up late.  Then the mother started complaining about the apartment.  Despite our five-star cleaning reviews, the space was not to her specifications, and she wanted her cleaning fees back. 

They were uncommonly noisy, blasting music and yelling.

We’ve written in our welcome packet the need for quiet.  They disregarded it.

The ghosts don’t go upstairs.  But as those of you who follow my work regularly are aware, they hate yelling and screaming.  And they just don’t like some folks.  And when that happens, they mess with the electricity.  

And so on the Saturday when we were able to re-open the cafe after our water debacle, we discovered that our music wouldn’t play.  And our point-of-sale system wasn’t accepting credit cards.  Nor was it feeding the orders back to the kitchen.  We updated devices, deleted apps and re-installed them.  We then realized that, while the routers were working, the internet had gone out.  The phone went out. The customers began complaining.  

So did the AirBnB guests.

Bob jiggled every wire, unplugged everything and plugged it all back in again, hit every re-set button.  

And the kids scrambled to find the order pads, but then kept forgetting to deliver the orders to the kitchen.

I hustled to keep up in the kitchen, but had to run back and forth to customer’s tables to confirm what they wanted.

“Just save the orders if people don’t have cash or checks to pay,” I directed Ula and her friend who was helping for the day.

We kept moving.

And at the end of the day, I discovered that they had, indeed, saved the orders.  They’d saved all orders as unpaid, even the ones who had paid cash.  And none of the orders had any names  or emails attached to them (because, Ula informed me, I hadn’t specified that.)  Folks walked away with $60 and $80 tickets, and we had no information to invoice them.  We identified some guests we knew by what they’d ordered, and I drove home to email invoices, only to be informed they’d paid cash.

And three more times, the AirBnB guests returned to complain about the lack of internet.  

Had we fixed it yet? 

“I haven’t been able to call it in.”

“Shouldn’t you call it in?”

“The phone is out.”

“Call on our cell phone then?”

“There’s no cell service here.”

They’d stand and gape at me.  Repeatedly I had to throw my arms in the air.  “Can’t help ya!”  Then try to move on with keeping up.  

Carolyn, one of our regulars, drove her car to the top of a hill so she could get reception and reported it.  At 5pm, a tech rolled in.

Bob led him down to the basement where they discovered the problem.  A breaker had been flipped. 

He and Bob studied the current loads.  This breaker has never tripped before.  

They got all technical and scientific.

I took out the charcoal and the incense.

I grabbed a leftover croissant.

And when the men cleared out of the basement with their instruments and their analysis, I went down to visit my ghosts.  

I left them a croissant offering.  I burned incense for them. 

“I’m not thrilled with the bnb guests either,” I spoke out loud.  “But they help me keep the building up, which keeps me here, and keeps you here.  And I think we both like it that way.”

I know good business is supposed to be about dollars and sense, managerial skills and technical skills. 

But there’s this other side to business.  The magic, the energetic gift of oneself to the community, the deference to those who’ve called this place home before me.  

I ask for their help.  I sprinkle salt in the cafe, and consider sprinkling salt around the entire building….but to be honest, I’m worried that if I do, somehow those AirBnB guests might never leave.  So I move it to my to-do list for next week, then I go out to the new honor store and walk around it with my salt there, circling that space as well

These rituals center me.  They pull me above the finances and the stresses and remind me of the heart and soul that drives everything I do.  This isn’t just labor.  These aren’t just mundane stresses.  This is sacred work, this business that calls friends and neighbors and strangers to the same gathering space each week, where we keep tabs on each other, seek nourishment, and return energy to the forests and fields.  These spaces are worthy of my love and my spirit.  No matter how tough things get.  

I walk around the side of the honor store to the new back patio that overlooks the creek.  I trail the salt along the edge of the stonework and back to the other side of the building.   I ask for the ghosts and all available guardian spirits for protection.

Then I go home for the night.

And the rains come.  

And it rains.  And rains and rains and rains.  

The basement floods.

The roof leaks.  

Roads are shut down.  

On Monday, we stop at the cafe to check for damages.

And that’s when we find that the creek has risen.  It is turgid and angry.

And it has swiped away swathes of ground and stream bank, turning our brand new creekside patio into a cliff-side patio, licking closer and closer with each droplet that passes…Held at bay, I truly believe, by a single line of salt and the efforts of a few ghosts.

The repairs will be thousands of dollars.  There are no government funds available, because, I’m told, a state of emergency wasn’t declared.  I set up meetings with the soil and water conservation district manager to begin filing applications with DEC to do emergency repairs on the stream.  I begin scanning the various bank accounts to scare up the cash.

And Bob comes home to report that the car isn’t working right.  It needs to go in for work.

With that, I push aside the bank statements and bundle all the checkbooks up in a rubber band.  I grab some water, my journal, and a book of Rumi’s poetry and head into the woods.

I sit beside one of my favorite rocks with the dogs and read these lines:

Who looks out with my eyes?  What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer,

I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

These words make me ask the same of myself.  Who is the soul that is having this experience in this body, in this life?  And if the soul has come to live this life, isn’t this, then, merely an experience for it?  Something to witness during my journey through this here and now?  

And I close my eyes and ignore the mosquitoes and listen to the thrushes and think about Longfellow’s observation

Into each life some rain must fall,…

It is falling for me now.  And if this is the experience I’m given, then the trick isn’t to dodge the rain drops, but to see just how graciously I can let the water wash over me.  

From this I will learn.  I will grow, and that will lead me to the next set of adventures. Fate has not forgotten how to count.  She just wants to make sure that the adventure of being me, of looking out through my eyes, is an exciting one.

 

Folks, don’t forget that my newest book, Redefining Rich: Achieving True Wealth with Small Business, Side Hustles and Smart Living, will be launching through BenBella Books this August.   You can help me get the word out AND earn a summer-long discount at our online farm store.  We are putting together a launch team of volunteers who can help promote it. If you’re interested in joining, details are at the top of the blog page at sapbush.com but basically, you’ll

• Pre-order a copy of the book
• Fill out our launch team form, which is found at the top of the sapbush.com blog;
• Promote the book through your social media channels
• Request the book at your local bookstore and library
• Leave a review wherever the book was purchased

But WAIT!  It gets better!  As an expression of my thanks, here’s what you will receive in return:

• A 15% discount code for anything in the online store at sapbushfarmstore.com, good through July 31, 2021
• A free digital chapter from the book in advance of the release date
• Entry into a giveaway for a signed copy of the book and a throw blanket from my store
• Official graphics for sharing on social media
• An invite to an exclusive virtual book club meeting so I can personally answer any questions you may have once you’ve received your copy.
• So please sign up – just go to sapbush.com, click on the blog, and the details are at the top.

This podcast happens with the support of my patrons on Patreon.  And this week I’d like to send a shout out to my patrons Melissa Johnson & Maureen Knapp.

.

Thank you, folks!  I couldn’t do it without you!  If you’d like to help support my work, you can do so for as little as $1/month by hopping over to Patreon and looking up Shannon Hayes.