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Monday, March 22, 2010

We take another beach holiday!

I am shirking...

Sunday I took Sadie to the beach. We drove out to Seal Rock to visit my friend Mel. He has an amazing house at the beach. It started raining. But of course the reason we went to the beach was that it was raining at home.
The wind was howling and the surf was high. We took Mel's remote control camaro and his Furby down to the beach. The battery went dead right away. But the Furby seemed to have a good time. Sadie had a Webkin's fluffy dog that rode along with the Furby. They seemed to get a long quit well. Mel must have the longest living Furby in the world. It has quite a vocabulary for a Furby.
Then it started raining again.
We played UNO last night. I lost repeatedly.
This morning is beautiful. It is just a bit cloudy but you can see blue sky. I need to be planting. Sadie will probably be disappointed if we don't spend a little time at the beach.

We spend all morning at the beach. Mel directed us to tidepools(see link-we were at seal rock) and explained limpets and anenomes and critters than have lots of tiny teeth and make holes in rock which I can't remember the name of. We found a whole pile of floats with Japanese writing on them. Mel collects them.

Then i came home and mixed some feed. This fellow wants me to supply him with 15 ton a month. We will pay me for grain plus $50 a ton to mix it all. I'm not so sure about this all. I need a barn with a concrete floor and then I need to buy a truck load of wheat, 15 ton of camolina meal at $250 per ton, and scrounge up some cheap oats and some clover screenings. So, I would buy all the materials, and he would pay me as he needed the feed? I think it would take more than $50 per ton to make it work. That is only $750 a month profit on what seems to be a lot of work and risk. Why do it?

3 comments:

  1. The power of positive shirking is under appreciated, under practiced. A beach, daughter, and planting weather is a step toward your black belt in shirking. Those don't hold your pants up, but look great on the wall above the rocking chair.

    Feed deal sounds like a fine arrangement for the other fellow. Whose pot o money is at risk here if it all goes sour some day? Seems like he should have complete ownership of the ingredients from the start, unless you are planning to go into the elevator business. They haven't been doing so well around here for about twenty years. Are you buying the seed for your planting customers? Don't nice guy yourself into oblivion...

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  2. Collieguy-It was too wet at home to plant anyway, says the farmer I was planting for. I remember as a child that we would never go to the beach on a nice day. The theory was that rain here meant nice weather at the beach. I would say that it was because Dad didn't want to take off work on a nice day but, I don't think we ever went to the beach on any other day but Sunday, after Church, and we NEVER stayed overnight.
    The problem with the feed deal is that I only have one customer. Now he is convinced that he will pay me, but I am not. That does not mean that he is dishonest, it just means that in my experience the law of averages is against him.
    The feed deal only works when I can find really cheap raw ingredients. Sprouted wheat, orphaned bags of oats, clover screenings. The goal on my end it to find stuff for a price so that I make $100 a ton.
    To make his order I would need a shed with a cement floor, truckloads of raw materials, and a good loader. I don't think I would want him to buy the materials because he has a set price he wants to pay. I would try to get that price as high as possible and then try to get the ingredients as cheap as possible.
    The difference between 1 ton a month and 15 is between hobby and pro!

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  3. Maybe the test of his ability to pay is to ask him to stay paid a couple deliveries ahead so you can "buy materials". If HE won't take any of the risk, why should YOU?

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