My son opened his own business yesterday. As you can guess from the title of this blog (and the fact that he’s only 8 years old), his small business is a lemonade stand.

His immediate impetus for intitiating this endeavor is to garner enough cash to acquire a coveted Star Wars Lego set (valued at ~$45). But he has a more long-term goal of acquiring as much money as he can. In fact, he’s become quite the Alex P. Keaton lately, being excessively interested in counting his money, and grabbing change from the change machines before his mother or I can grab it.

I hadn’t realized the real-life experiences and lessons afforded from a simple lemonade stand until Owen expressed a desire to have one. I never operated such a stand when I was a kid (though I did play the computer game), but I’ve always tried to support them when I see them. So, when Owen said he wanted one, I immediately began using it as a teaching tool:

Where will you get the lemonade from?
The store

Do you have money to buy it?
Yes.

Will you buy it frozen? That’s cheaper.
Yes.

But then you have to make it. Can you do that?
Um…can you show me?

Sure. What are you gonna pour the lemonade into when people buy it?
We have cups.

Yeah, but we don’t want people walking away with our dishes. What about paper cups?
Okay.

So, do you have money for paper cups, too?
…And it went on like that. We discused advertising (e.g., signage), location, how to keep ice frozen while outside in the summertime, how to make change, and even how best to present the beverage. This included using a table cloth, ensuring his hands looked (and were!) clean, using tongs to grab the ice out of the cooler, placing the ice in the cup prior to pouring the drink, filling the cup pretty far (so that buyers feel they got a good value), but not so far that they risk spillage.

We also discussed price. I’ve frequently seen lemonade selling for 50 cents a cup, which is anywhere from double to quintuple the price I saw when I was Owen’s age. We decided to go with 25 cents a cup. We calculated that he would still be able to cover expenses at this price, but that it would still be low enough so that no one would decline the drink on account of price. I suggested that some people might just tell him to keep the change, too.

Owen was able to cover his costs this way:
Table, chair, bag for money: Previously owned
Ice, cooler, table cloth, disposable cups, trip to the grocery store, tongs, plywood, paint: Provided gratis by parents
Lemonade: Start-up cost covered by Owen

After returning from the grocery store (where Owen spent just over five bucks for four cans of frozen lemonade), we painted a sign to advertise his stand. This took two tries, as Owen initially painted the words so large, he could only fit LEMONA on the sign before he ran out of room. He would’ve ran out of room on the other side, too, if I hadn’t stepped in and finished the letter M so it didn’t take up a quarter of the board.

Owen set up shop on the west end of our property, near the corner (to maximize exposure). He began right around noon – equipped with four books to read while he waited. I had to replace those books once he finished them, and then I had to replace those.

He stayed out there for five hours – coming into the house only twice to use the bathroom. I kept telling him he could wrap it up if he wanted, but he was insistent on staying out there. We kept moving his table to keep him (and his beverage) in the shade. Isla even asked him to fill up their watering cans and water the rose bushes, but he told her to go fill them, and then she brought them over and he helped her water the bushes (which were near his stand). I stayed outside the whole time, a safe distance away so I wasn’t hovering. I worked in the garage mostly, and sometimes I sat around the corner and read.

I had three hopes for Owen: First, I hoped he sold something, because I would’ve felt just terrible if no one came (and an employee at the grocery store helpfully informed us that his daughter tried her hand at a stand the day before and didn’t have any luck). Second, I wanted him to break even with the five bucks he spent. Third, I wanted him to have a desire to do it again, on a busier day (Friday and Saturday would be better for business, actually).

To my delight, Owen sold his first cup within ten minutes after setting up shop; a guy walking by purchased one glass. Then a mom came by with her children and bought her two daughters each a glass. Then some guy pulled his car over, and gave Owen 35 cents for a glass. Then another woman drove by, gave Owen a thumbs-up and told him to keep up the good work. Which…isn’t exactly what Owen wanted…but it’s nice when a new business feels wanted by the community.

Then our neighbors came home, and the woman walked over to get a cup for her and her husband. When she walked by me, I thanked her for supporting the local economy, and she said it’s such a hot day, the thought of lemonade sounded good to her. A neighbor girl from down the block, not more than ten or eleven years old, walked over and bought two cups. Later, a man on a bike gave Owen a dollar for a cup and, according to Owen, “didn’t care for his change.” Then another man pulled over his minivan and purchased four cups – one for everyone in his family. Isla, of course, also wanted lemonade, and I thrice had to give her money to bring over to her brother to buy a cup. The first time this happened, Owen giggled with delight that his little sister actually had a quarter for him and was acting just like a “real” customer.

Owen isn’t exactly sure how much profit he yielded. He wasn’t sure how much money he started out with in his bag, and a few people gave Owen more than the asking price, so he couldn’t just count up the number of cups he used. All in all, though, he made somewhere over nine dollars which, after expenses, is over four dollars profit. And half of his inventory is still in the freezer, so his next go around will begin yielding profits right away.

Speaking of profits, I asked Owen if he was going to report his income for tax purposes, but he said no. I think he makes a good point: No taxation without representation, as they say, and since Owen is disenfranchised, he should not be expected to pay for a government in which he is given no say.

Let’s just hope the FDA doesn’t come running…

Way back on the third of July, someone driving too fast sideswiped our parked car and smashed our sideview mirror into a dozen pieces. The driver, later determined to be a “he,” also scuffed up the driver’s side doors. He continued, unabated, down the road and turned the corner a block later.

His decision to keep on going was a bad idea.

Primarily because, being who we are, Jennifer and I have a general practice of hunting down people who wronged us and demanding that justice be served. You can ask the managers of several restaurants, hotels, stores, hospitals, and online retailers who have awarded us thousands of dollars over the years due to their negligence.

So there we were, minding our own business in our yard, when SMASH!, the four of us hear a loud noise. Jennifer quickly deduced that the driver had hit our car. I was under the mistaken impression the driver had merely thrown something at our car but, either way, bad move, buddy.

In his defense, he might have assumed the owner of the vehicle wasn’t anywhere near the car. Most of the cars parked on our road are for people who are patronizing nearby restaurants. And even the people who, like us, do live in the neighborhood, probably aren’t standing outside, within twenty feet of their vehicles.

Another possibility is that he was “under the influence,” and figured that the slight chance of getting caught for a minor hit-and-run accident was a safer bet than pulling over, giving me his insurance policy…and having me insist the police come over…who would then check his blood-alcohol level…which would turn out to be…not exactly legal. So drive on he did. 

I ran out into the street waving my arms trying to get the driver to stop. When I saw he wasn’t going to, I repeatedly spoke his license plate number while my wife entered the number in her phone. We called the cops, received an accident report, took pictures of the injuries to our vehicle and then, a few days later, received the name, address and phone number of the offender.

So I called him. A woman answered the phone. She was his wife. She knew nothing of her husband’s hit-and-run and felt really bad about what he had done. She even gave me his work number, telling me to call him at work. I was hesitant to do this. “Is it okay if I bother him at work?” I asked. She said, “Oh, I don’t care, he needs to deal with his problems.” So…yeah…this was starting to sound like a bad idea. The last thing I wanted to do was bother someone with a history of “problems” at work, where I might embarass him in front of his coworkers or boss. So I pressed her a little more to just give me her insurance policy number. She put the phone down to go look for it. When she came back to the phone, I could tell she was very upset. In fact, she even started crying and apologizing.

This was really weird.

I explained to her that I held no ill-will to her husband, and certainly not to her. I just needed to get my car repaired, and, as far as I can tell, they should be the people who foot the bill for the repairs.

So then I called her insurance company and explained the problem.

And now I’m happy to announce that our car is good as new back to the way it was before the accident. No cost to us. Not even for the rental car we had for the week while our car was at an auto body shop.

Remember back when Captain Kirk battled Khan Noonien Singh and they made a good movie about it?

Yeah, unless you’re like, 35 years old (or older), you weren’t around during that blessed time. Some money-grubbers remade the movie swapping lens-flare for pathos and back story, but I suggest you skip that one.

Anyway, the original one had, of course, lots of tie-in merchandise, including a recorded book (on vinyl), which I purchased at a thrift shop some years ago. I think I bought it back in 2004 – August 2004 to be more precise. Jennifer and I were vacationing for our anniversary, and I spotted this record still in its original packaging.

Fast forward to July 2013: I’m moving our record collection from one cabinet to another cabinet, and my son sees the record. He says he wants to listen to it. I tell him we will later.

Last week, we finally did listen to it. Watch this short documentary on the event, below. If nothing else, I get a kick out of the excitement in Owen’s expressions:

 When the newsletter from our local co-op arrived in the mail in late May, I perused the list of classes, as I often do. There are usually one or two interesting classes, but I had never taken one.

But this time, I saw a rain barrel class scheduled for early June. The class would discuss the importance of capturing rain water, its uses and benefits, and how to go about capturing said water. After a one hour class, participants would go outside and make their own rain barrel. Well, maybe “modify” would be a better word than “make,” as the barrels were already sitting out in the yard waiting for us, but we did have to drill some holes and install some hardware.

The class was offered in three price brackets. I chose the highest-priced option, as that allowed me to have one of the oak barrels (the other two were plastic and butt-ugly). The oak barrels had formerly been used to store wine, so they had some burgundy stains on them and a bung hole where, previously, the delicious nectar had been transmitted. In fact,

the barrel gave off a strong, intensely pleasant aroma as soon as I drilled the first pilot hole in the top.

Besides the hole for the rain water to enter, I also had to drill two holes on the side of the barrel; one for overflow, and one for the spigot. We were all instructed to be careful to drill in the center of a stave. Drilling a hole that straddles two staves, we were warned, could split the staves and cause leakage. I’m happy to report I successfully drilled in the center of a stave each time, which is more than I can say for some of my classmates. You can see the hole for the overflow spigot near my thumb in the photo at left.

After driving the barrel home (it just barely fit in the passenger side of my Cavalier; I had to lower the seat as far as possible), it sat in my garage for a couple weeks until I purchased and installed all the necessary parts for redirecting my gutter. If you read my last blog post, and the one before that, you’ll see that I’ve done quite a bit of traveling in the past month, so I worked on this project intermittently when I was at home.

I could have just cut the gutter at an appropriately high spot and dropped the barrel in place there, but duing the class, the instructor showed us pictures of a rain diverter.

I wanted that for two reasons: 1) The barrel needs to be stored in the garage in the winter, but since there’s still the possibility of rain (and melting snow) during any month, I wanted this water to still be shunted away from my house, and not come pouring down in a big, muddy mess right by my foundation. And, 2) my house narrows right near the downspout, and I thought this alcove would create a perfect spot for the barrel to tuck into, but I’d have to wrap the gutter around this corner.

In this photo at left, you can see the fruits of my labor. The gutter travels down the side of the house like it always did, but then it splits in two with the diverter. The split going to the left simply curves back in and then goes straight down like it did before. The split to the right, meanwhile, follows around the two corners of the house and then spits out directly above the barrel. The silver lever in the diverter allows me to select the path I wish the water to follow. In the winter, when I remove the barrel, I will switch the diverter to allow the water to travel straight down.

In this photo you can also see the overflow tube (lower right), which is attached to the top spigot and follows along the side of the house for about five feet until it comes to a rock garden, where I have it covered by rocks, and then spits out into my yard just in front of a stone wall.

These two photos feature the latest model of Zimmerman filling her watering can to go water the rose bushes. As you can see, it’s so easy, even a two-year old can do it. (Well, an above-average two-year old can do it, at any rate.)

The act of filling a watering can is very enjoyable, evidently, and Isla can hardly resist sticking her hand into the can as it fills, even though she really should be focusing on turning off the spigot before the can overflows.

The first time she and her brother used the barrel, I saw her drinking from her watering can.

“Isla! Don’t drink that water,” I said, “It’s dirty.”

“But it smells like beer,” she said, noting the wine-aroma that is still subtely present even a month after drilling holes and filling it with water.

Let’s see…in the past 30 days, I have:

*Attended a magic show

*Been to five different US states

*Visited the site of the Boston Massacre, and seen Samuel Adams’ and Paul Revere’s grave site

*Toured the Old State House in Boston

*Walked on the Freedom Trail

*Been on four airplane trips

*Stayed at the family cabin for five nights

*Visited two state parks: Interstate and Myre-Big Island, and spent the night camping at the latter one.

*Attended a wedding reception

*Became Vice President of Education of my Toastmasters club

*Celebrated Independence Day

*Had my yearly eye exam and bi-yearly dental check-up

*Visited the Sod House on the Prairie, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum, and Laura’s home site on the banks of Plum Creek (and actually waded into Plum Creek)

*Attended the Family Festival in Walnut Grove

*Watched four movies, and every episode of the new season of Arrested Development

*Read four entire books (not counting another hundred I read to Isla)

*Not worked a full week of work

So, yeah, a busy month – and that’s only including the activites I directly participated in. The rest of my family also had lots going on (e.g., my son attended a week-long class at the Science Museum). There were also some negative things, too, such as the hit-and-run that took out our car’s sideview mirror, and the clogged toilet that necessitated a professional plumber’s services. But let’s not dwell on that stuff.

Instead, I want to mention one other activity I did in the past month: I – along with my family – visited the Franconia Sculpture Park.

We visited this while on our way to the family cabin, which is about 20 minutes beyond this attraction. Everytime we’ve driven to the cabin during the past ten years, I keep thinking, “Hey, we should stop there,” but we’re always under a time constraint, or the weather is terrible. This time, thankfully, we had no such limitations.

Touring the park is free, and there are guided tours every Sunday (though you can probably skip that). They do accept cash donations. The majority of the sculptures are made of metal, though a few feature plastic, wood, and cement. Most sculputres are several times larger than a human, so it’s quite overwhelming.

Among the sculputes we saw were a barn suspended in midair, a huge conglomerate of old pipes and chains that kids can play on, and a car made out of cement. Actually, when we came upon the car, one of the tour guides asked if anyone wanted to guess how much it weighed. Owen guessed 700 tons, and then a bunch of other people laughed. Turns out, the car weighs 80 tons, so while Owen was quite far off, I at least applaud him for not being too cowardly to even hazard a guess, like the adults who laughed at him.

The tour guides invited us to climb on and touch most of the sculptures, so that was fun for the kids.  

On the day we visited, there was standing water all over the park, and the walking paths are little more than flattened areas of dirt, so our shoes and socks got soaked.

After the tour, there were Icees for sale for the rock-bottom price of two for a buck.

I highly recommend the attraction for people of all ages and economoic brackets.

Next time we head tot he cabin, I want to stop at the minigolf site we pass everytime.