Life after August 14th 2009

And so the foreclosure deadline passed… 5:00 pm came and went just like any hour of the hectic days we have had over the past few weeks.  But August 14th 2009 was the date that had weighed heavily on everybody’s minds and although we kept telling each other that it was just a date, the air was tingling with nervousness and worry. Late in the afternoon, after phone conferences, meetings, emails, more phonecalls and costumers in the store, I looked at my watch. It was already 5:18. I guess I had expected some bells and whistles to go off at 5:00 but none of that happened. So we simply kept going  to push forwards.

Several people asked me why I was putting up a stage, mowing the lawn, decorating the farm for a big festival, and inviting artists  and food vendors to come celebrate our first anual Mint Jam, while we were in the middle of a foreclosure. They said: Why aren’t you rolling over on your back, surrender, and walk away? Instead, you are throwing a party? My answer is simple; nobody is taking this farm away, nobody can stop us, and we are saving this farm. The Mint Jam turned out to be a huge success and if nothing else, we had people coming to our farm and experiencing what it is what the farm does, how much we love it and how it affects everybody’s life in nothing but a positive manner.

And so, today, I still stand firm to save our farm. The 98th harvest is still here, the distillery still blows the whistle,  costumers are coming to the store, the phones are ringing off the hook and we are working diligently to follow up on new business opportunities and creating new relationships.

One of our main concerns and top priorities at this point in time is the website. The Get Mint Trading Company has lost thousands and thousands of dollars during the website attacks and harassments on www.getmint.com  since last October. This is an ongoing process, a struggle, a fight, but on a non-level playing field. We do not know where the attacks came and are coming from, but they incapacitated us severely and lost us many costumers.

One can come across many struggles when building a business under foreclosure. The website attacks, however, were something we hadn’t taken into account. Or better; it goes beyond each and all of our wildest imagination. Hadn’t this happened we would have been able to pay our bills and pay off our loans. Three out of four of our loans are in good standing, and our campaign to save the farm is intended to raise money to pay off this last $300.000. I have been on several nationwide radio broadcasts and received phone calls from all over the country from people showing their support. The majority of those people, were not able to order products from the website I had promoted, because of viruses, alarms, warnings and even porn showing up on their computer screens. Imagine what that does to a business…

Now that both August 14th  and Mint Jam 09 have passed, and the crowds are gone, some of the peace has seemingly returned to the farm. But looks can be deceiving; behind the scenes we are working hard to get a new website up and running, reach out to our costumers, friends and relations to keep them informed, talking to the media, harvesting, running the store, processing orders and answering that phone  right there that has been ringing all day… We are trying to talk to the governor, and even the President if we must, as long as we can get the message out there that this liquidation does not need to happen. We have a successful business, that can be even more successful if it wasn’t for these dark forces that are working against us. And what about the bank, you ask?  Nothing but silence…

But, in this process and the road we traveled, we have been blessed to experience a lot of goodness and warmth. An endless stream of  people have stepped forward, reached out to us and showed their support. And we know that more will, and are coming. A simple phone call, an email, or somebody stopping by can and does make all the difference and that person has the power to turn a moment of despair and panic around to pure blissfulness.  These are the things we need to hold onto, because if anything, we are all here to help each other and this is our very own intent. And so we are all keeping the faith and are grateful for all the help, support and friendships that we have experienced all around us during this foreclosure. We are expecting miracles.

Peppermint Jim.

~ by peppermintjim on August 19, 2009.