Orchards
Springtime has arrived in Houston and along with it, Spring Break for families with children, such as ours. We stuck close to home and spent a wonderful and relaxing week at our place in the country halfway between Houston and Austin. I decided to undertake a project that week: plant a small orchard. I ordered specimens online from Willis Orchard in Georgia: peach, apple, plum, pear, mulberry, persimmon, pomegranate, olive, fig, blueberry, blackberry, lemon, orange, and lime. I tasked one of my young ranch hands with digging holes, and then got to work with my daughter Abby. Over a few days we mixed new topsoil with fertilizer and native soil, planted and watered, and then built cages to protect our new trees from deer, wild hogs, rabbits, and hopefully any others who seek to profit from our labor.
By the end of the week I was tired. My hands, back, legs, and neck all hurt. I had driven miles back and forth to the small town stores in La Grange and Columbus multiple times to get things we needed and things I had forgotten. The road ahead for the trees is not a given. With extraordinarily hot Texas summers I will need to buy a water trailer to bring water to them, and it will take regular vigilance to protect the trees from heat, cold, pests, animals, and diseases. Hopefully, however, the fruit of this orchard will bring joy, health, and satisfaction.
Investing is not very different at all from planting an orchard. It takes hard work to develop capital to buy (root) stock, a coherent strategy to implement, determination to respond to challenges along the way, prudent maintenance along the way, and time to permit growth to occur. The end result – benefits that far exceed the costs committed – make it all more than worth it.
May you plant many orchards in your life. At New Capital, we are honored that you entrust your capital to us to grow.
Leonard Golub, CFA
Fiduciary Financial Advisor