How'd it go today?

[stehansen]

Butcher them yourself or eat it at a restaurant?

Myself, my Dad had them around. They made noise in the daytime but not usually at night. They finally got eaten by the neighborhood cats. All dark meat if I remember correctly.
I had errands related to selling the house this morning and had to take my Dad to a doctors appointment. I am offically homeless. I got home about 3:00 and was going to go out and turn some wood at my cousin's house but then my sister invited me over for dinner. Since my dental surgery last week nothing tastes good.

 

[woodworkingboy]

I used to keep Nubian goats, one of my favorite critters. There is a reason why people in the third world keep them, as was mentioned, more output for less input. Doesn't exactly sound like the third world that Squish is moving into there, though. I'd get Toggenberg goats the nest time, a white goat. Nubians are black. No racial implications implied, just a personality thing. You don't have to keep them in milk, around to keep the grass down or just about anything else, is very useful.

 

[SoonerFan]

Steve, since you are officially homeless, where are you temporarily hanging your hat at night?

 

[stehansen]

I have another month here, but the house doesn't belong to me, as of yesterday afternoon at 4:00.

 

[SoonerFan]

Didn't want to see you standing on one of the street corners holding a cardboard sign.

 

[stehansen]

I do have a tent.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

And he has a friend close by for a camp site with full facilities..... I think there is even a chef there

 

[lumberjack]

Good deal, homeless Steve. Don't get too rowdy in the dwelling eh?


Put out 2 bids so far today, got both. Working on another bid for 9 stumps, major PITA job, want it fully cleaned up and backfilled with top soil. They also want a seperate line item for resodding over the backfilled topsoil. The job is for a public middle school 40 miles over in the next town, I'm a sub to a local company that I'm friends with. I removed this tree March 31st of this year at the same school as a sub for the same comany.

 

[SoonerFan]

Neighbor 5 doors down the street from me had an old stump in his yard. Probably around 30"s. Couple of months ago I told him I would grind it for $30.00 (neighbor discount).

Today I see someone grinding the stump. Stop by and pretend I also have one to get rid of... What are you charging him?

He paid $100.00 to this guy. WTF?

 

[lumberjack]

That is mighty odd.

 

[woodworkingboy]

There's an old saying, Dennis, "When in doubt, raise your prices".

Some folks just aren't happy unless they pay more. Funny how that works......

 

[CurSedVoyce]

And people still get that WTF look on their face when I don't give discounts.. That there is exactly the reason.

Got a late start on the chipping today.. DOH! Just was dragging from yesterdays climb.. Got the drive chipped in a couple hours and came home to unload.. Now we'll go take a load of wood out and deliver it to make the days wage.
Kinda nice working close and at home today

 

[Burnham]

Perhaps he knew your price was under the going rate and didn't want to take advantage of your generosity?

Nah. That doesn't make sense...he could have just paid you what he knew it was worth.

Who knows.

 

[SkwerI]

For the most part I've figured out that I don't want to work for my neighbors. Same reason I don't work for family, they want everything for free and act insulted if you charge more than 25% of what the job is worth. Then when they have a 'big' job they prefer calling somebody more qualified and don't even bother asking you because they don't think you're capable of handling the job.

Once I finally quit wasting my time with those types and refined my customer base, I began getting paid what I was worth and the customers appreciate me more. Now I'm the 'qualified' guy that gets called in when it's too big of a job for the cheap neighborhood guy.

 

[SoonerFan]

Funny thing is, this guy rented one of the little grinders and probably went 2 to 3" below grade with it.

I would have taken it down at least 12" below grade had I done it.

Oh well, I didn't really NEED the $30.00 anyway.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

Would have cost you more in teeth..

 

[lumberjack]

You sure that $30 won't keep you from your day job of delivering hotties here and yon?

To do the full job on the 9 stumps I'm guessing it'll land somewhere between $300-500/stump. I'm working on a video (yay!) to illustrate the difficulties of the job, which I'll submit with the bid for a couple reasons.

 

[SoonerFan]

Carl, there is always time to do both.

 

[lumberjack]

I dunno, at my age I might latch on to one and make it a full time gig.

 

[brendonv]

On the flip side, we've not hired the lowest bid for things around the house here. Our driveway for example, you couldn't buy the material for what one of the quotes was for. Are they going to cut corners? Half ass it because they threw themselves under the bus?

Maybe he thought you wouldn't go deep below grade, or leave a mess, or I dunno. Just ideas.

 

[MasterBlaster]

He paid $100.00 to this guy. WTF?

And I bet a quarter he wasn't getting that much. There's an old saying about people talking about how much money they're making... "Whatever figure they throw out, cut it in half and divide it by 2. THAT'S the real figure."

By that account, he underbid you by five bucks.

 

[SoonerFan]

Well now it makes perfect sense!

I'm still gonna say something the next time I see him. You might just owe me a quarter if you are wrong.

 

[brendonv]

Suppose to be an easy day today, 97 out, and humid. I work for the king of add ons. In the morning it was just one take down, and go dead wood an oak. Lunch rolls around, "By the way, where that Oak is, I marked two more trees to take down, and some dead wood in a Hickory, you might have to climb it".

Got there, ended up just dead wooding the oak, and taking down the smallest of the two trees. In addition to that we had to go chip a pile of Laurel the shrub pruners did. Nothing like a mess at 3:30 to deal with. There's always tomorrow in my mind, but not in his vocab.

Got home and did nothing. Then just went out and dropped a dead Birch into the woods for my friends neighbor. Easy peasy, date night money.

Glad I only have three days there, nothing like your own jobs to finish off the week. Or blow off and go to the beach.

 

[Al Smith]

Some folks just aren't happy unless they pay more. Funny how that works......

There's a lot of truth to that statement .

 

[SkwerI]

Brendon, I'm not very good at dealing with people like that. I'm a goal oriented person and from the time I head to work my focus is on reaching my target goal (completion). If I'm 30 minutes from reaching my goal and you move the goalposts, I'm going to be pissed.