Treasure hunting

I listened to a book recently about an eccentric art dealer who thought he was going to die of cancer. So, he put together a chest full of treasures like gold coins and precious stones and hid it in the Rocky Mountains.

The book is called “Chasing the Thrill” by Daniel Barbarisi, which is very similar to the memoir the art dealer Forrest Fenn wrote, which contained the poem and clues to find his hidden treasure, called “The Thrill of the Chase.”

 Fenn managed to beat cancer and spent years overseeing the hunt for the treasure he had hidden, giving small hints here and there to help people avoid getting in dangerous situations while searching.

The author began writing the book after looking for the treasure with his friend. They never do find the treasure over the years the author works on the book, but it pulls him into an interesting world of people he interviews and goes searching with. 

Some of the characters and situations he describes reminded me a lot of farming. At first, the people searching for the treasure sound so hopeful. They have the clues all figured out and they just need to comb through the region they think the clues indicate a few more times to find it. Farming is often like that, where, at first, it seems like you’ve got a new venture or system nearly all figured out. Everything is running smoothly. You are not where you want to be quite yet, but it seems like you are sure to get there soon, and it will be great.

As the book goes on, the mood changes. The author and his friend come up with what they think are original and brilliant solutions to the clues but continue to find nothing when they go out searching. The people he interviews are less confident they will find the treasure, too, and some people question whether Forrest Fenn even hid a treasure at all. They think maybe they have all been searching in vain for something that does not exist or maybe did once but has been found and the finder did not tell a soul they found it. 

It’s easy to understand their frustration. If you have been looking for something for years and seem to be no closer to finding it, you’ve felt that frustration. Profitability in farming ventures can be that way. Elusive. Lately, many of our farm’s business ventures have felt like a treasure hunt that may have no treasure to be found. Inflation seems to have increased the price of all our inputs, but what we’ve been getting paid for our products has fallen short of keeping up.

The hunt ends with the discovery of the treasure a decade after the announcement of its existence by a guy that no one in the community of hard-core treasure hunters had ever heard of. He wasn’t even from a state near the mountains it was hidden in. It turned out that all those who had lost hope and blamed Fenn for running a con were wrong. They just weren’t looking in the right spot. The guy who found it said he did nothing fancy to find the location of the treasure. He didn’t look for complicated answers like many people did. Instead, he read the memoir of the man who hid the treasure and did his best to understand him and think like him. It worked out well. I believe I saw on the internet that the treasure was auctioned off for $1.3 million. 

I think there’s a bit of wisdom to be taken from that book for us in agriculture. Understand your customer and what they truly value if you want to find where they hide their treasures.

Until next time, keep living the dream — unless your dream was to find that treasure in the Rocky Mountains, in which case, it has been found, and you’ll have to come up with a new dream.

 Tim Zweber farms with his wife, Emily, their three children and his parents, Jon and Lisa, near Elko, Minnesota.