Hog Island

                                      

                      I was born in 1976. That same year my Uncle and Grandfather purchased a chunk of land in a town called West Swanton (swae'en to the locals) aka Hog Island. They planted 600 apple trees and the next 22 years of my life were spent growing that little orchard. You see the Bourgeois family always had a business, prior to this little gentleman's apple farm there was a cement block factory for the kids, the idea being we would learn how to work from a young age and grow to appreciate the things that we had. No computers or video games in our homes, you see myself, my brother and two cousins, we had an orchard to take care of and a farm store to run.

I can still remember the first apples we sold there, we had a small store with a roll up garage door and we put out a bunch of half peck bags of our apples, and people came. We processed sales with a calculator and a pen, and we tracked every sale we made this way, and we got paid for it! Sweet! We also had a chance to spend invaluable time with my grandparents along the way learning life's lessons.

After all could there be a better learning experience than a Canadian in a speedo trying to swindle a 12 year old on the exchange rate? Or hearing some truly off colored jokes from the tourists and locals alike that visited our shop? Nope, that was a real eye opener and I learned some great people skills dealing with the myriad of folks that came through the door. I started out as a shy kid, cowering at kindergarten crying until the day was over, to the person I am today, who doesn't know when to shut up!

How about being a teenager having all my friends as employees with our charge being getting all the apples off the tree? That was a fun time, and one memory that sticks out is a particularly vicious apple fight where my friend Todd was hit in the head, while up in a tree, quickly toppling over with a full basket of apples to the ground. I'm pretty sure that was his last day in the fields!

Or how about the wisdom passed on from my grandparents about hard work. One great lesson was measure twice and cut once. This was a bit of a joke to my cousin and I and I recall vividly building our cider mill, you see we were there for the crap work, literally straightening nails. I guess this was the low man on the totem pole thing. My grandfather was working with a screw gun (back when you plugged them in). My cousin Jeremy and I were joking about standing on the cord and how much trouble we could get in if we actually did that, well we screwed up and did, needless to say we straightened our last nail that day.

Or how about painting the equipment shed, and pretending that we fell off the ladder and screaming for help to our grandmother, who had close to a heart attack when she discovered us. I still laugh about it but that day it wasn't half as funny as we thought it would be!

The orchard was a great place to learn the ins and outs of running a business, in a safe environment. The people skills and business skills we developed as a family, all working together still serve me well today in my current capacity. I am hopeful that we can discover a way to impart the same experiences into our own kids, the opportunity to work a business and see how the in and out of business works at a young age.

I never once longed for a childhood where we could have sat in front of a video game, after all what could be better than a common place where you get to spend summers and the fall with your family, learning about life. Those are memories that I would never trade, and I'm thankful everyday for the "investment" my family made in their children and grandchildren, to teach us about life and the world of running a small business.

This time of year always reminds me of days spent in the fields and at the store, family closely around me, the smell of pies baking, the sweet taste of fresh pressed cider, and I'm hopeful that somehow I can give my own kids the same memories and opportunity at a young age to experience the joys of entrepreneurship and the importance of family values. .