When You Hear ‘You Don’t Know Anything’-And Do It Anyway

“You don’t know anything about that” can be a paralyzing thought – unless you decide to answer it with courage, curiosity, and action. by Chad

Has this voice ever crept into your head – “You don’t know anything about that” – when you’re thinking of doing something new? Or maybe someone has said it to you…?

I’ve thought about writing on this topic for a while… and maybe it’s more applicable in the New Year. A time when many of us lay out fresh plans and goals. Whether it’s this voice or another voice saying different things – like, “Why do you deserve it” or “I should just stop dreaming and appreciate where I’m at”… the question is, are these voices real?

My point with bringing all this up is to share what I’ve experienced hearing the voice – “You don’t know anything about that” and my mantra to replace that voice with “I may not know, but you can bet I’m going to figure it out”.

I’d like to share some fun examples of how we’ve figured things out – and maybe the main theme is:

1. Courage is the definition of being scared and doing it anyway.
2. The generosity of those who’ve travelled the road before us is an absolute hidden gem.
3. At some point you’re going to pay a stupid tax, but it makes for great learnings and memories.

We started looking at apple orchards pretty intensely in 2013. For the sole purpose of a future grape, home and winery site… that’s when the voice started… “You don’t know anything about growing apples”. Well, I was determined to figure it out.

At the time there was more apple orchard in the Manson area than there is now. It made sense to find property with apples and farm them until we were ready for grapes. As it turns out, in 2014 I got a job in the apple industry growing fruit tree’s and chasing apple, pear and cherry varieties around the world. And our first property ended up being bare – nothing on it (home place purchased in 2014).

But, this was all to prepare us for buying 7 acres of orchard in 2016 and another 7 acres next to our home place in 2017. Overnight we had 14 acres of apples. Here’s where the courage comes in – we burned the boats and had to figure out how to care for all these apples (even though 14 acres is incredibly small). All from California.

One thing led to another and we were able to work with Salvador who’d cared for the 7 acres we bought in 2016 for years, and he would take on the home place as well. The crazy thing is – yeah, we got to figure it out over time next to a veteran, and it wasn’t as scary as we thought it would be.

These orchards served us for a number of years until prices really started to soften. Which coincided with us moving to Chelan full time in 2018… enter #2, the generosity of others.

I’ve written about the value of mentorship before… need I say more. If you don’t have a mentor, find one, or become one for someone. The mentors who’ve helped Jeana and I over the years have contributed immeasurably to our success. We could not have done it without them.

But what I wanted to share here is way more practical and very related to being a 1st generation farmer.

Simple things like – in rural Manson, what do you do if you get a flat tractor tire? You literally could have had a day’s work lined up, and you’re dead in the water with a flat tire. Or, what about the first time hooking up and calibrating a sprayer for our grapes – uh, YouTube or local mentors?

We’ve been so fortunate to be welcomed into the farming community here – they help with the silliest stuff. Like, hey, the forklift won’t start after winter – maybe it just needs some starter fluid one local friend/mentor says. I ask, where do I spray it…? Well, with a little direction – we got the forklift started.

Connecting equipment to the three point on the tractor (see picture). This seems like art and equipment technique. Each time a local friend helps, I learn a little more. It’s taken years to get better at it. Who would have known there’s so many on and off’s with different equipment on the back of the tractor.

I’ve had the impractical dream of equipment dedicated to jobs… For years, we ran old tractors and borrowed when we needed. Tractors are super expensive and we couldn’t justify a tractor unless it could do many things – rototill, snowplow, mow, bucket, spray… oh, and learning how to connect and disconnect hydraulics, another local friend learning.

A lot of the easy examples are on equipment. But the list is long and includes irrigation, apple pest management, labor management, insurance, finances, harvest timing (a big deal), when to have a sauna session and so much more. There seems to only be so much you can learn from a book… we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for mentors.

The 3rd one is the stupid tax. Maybe to be kinder – it’s simply learnings that may have been costly. The crazy thing is how much these learnings stand out.

The boys and I put our heads together and we think one of our largest stupid taxes was – not any one big thing. We felt like it’s little things over the years… like trying to care for a newly planted vineyard “remotely” (epic fail), or putting our end posts too close to the hill making for a steep tractor turn, or not being aggressive enough on pest programs, or figuring out how to properly cool the tractor in hot dusty conditions.

Or one that’s maybe a bit bigger – taking on too much ourselves (eyes are bigger than our stomach sometimes), or being too optimistic on a revenue forecast, or not planning our work enough, or risking loss of our whole pumpkin crop to weeds and squash beetle, or it turns out we’ve not been grazing to maximize forage volume and carbon capture, or … the list goes on.

The amazing thing with these learnings is how motivating they are for the future. It’s wisdom we can draw on that has some power behind it because we don’t want to experience the pain again.

The neat thing is – as we continue to rely on mentors and friends, how many of these things they remind us are inevitable but also how many things they help us avoid – that maybe they learned through experience.

I’ve wanted to write about this for a while. As you consider new challenges in the new year. Be courageous, who cares if you don’t know, you can figure it out. You can find mentors and you can learn from your own experience.

I often find myself reminding myself – what is it I’ll be most proud of looking back when I’m 70? I know it will be that I tried, that I jumped in and figured it out.

Gosh, with YouTube and ChatGPT at our fingertips – we can solve a lot of things. It helped solve the overheating tractor issue this past summer – really amazing. I’m grateful for having so many amazing mentors for so many things – even the simple things like getting better at hooking things up to the three point on the back of the tractor.

Jeana and I both hope you’re able to lay out plans for 2026 that excite you. We wish you the best in doing so. We can’t wait to host you here at the Farm and catch up.