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A Hello to you all from Grand Rapids! New to backyard chickens and a new mama hen! Looking forward to reading forums and learning lots! Any advice for winter pass it on. Thanks!
 
Hey I got back home late last night . Dropped off the WW . Nobody got strangled on the trip . Still have 37 logs piled waiting to be sawed into lumber . I am done for the year . Still need about 14 more logs added to the 37 to have enough to finish the cabin / house . I booked this sawyer in late June . He said he was booked 6 weeks out . So that was about 8 weeks out . I had about 20 logs ready . The saw did a good job . The price was good . Just could not get him to show up and put in a full day . I really am acting as my own general contractor . It is my money and I am in charge of hiring and firing . In my working world if I did not show up or produce I had no job . No excuses . I had to wait 2 weeks for my first check when hiring on . He did about 12 logs . The work was there and money to be earned . He showed up on Thursday the 29th as scheduled . Tried to set up and wined around and left . Came back the following Wednesday With a bobcat to move logs to a better spot . Worked 2 hours with the bobcat and whined about the mud from the rain . Left for the day . Showed up Thursday and worked from 8 to 4 minus lunch . No problem there . I went to town and rented a track type bobcat with grapple . Spent about 5 hours getting logs out of the woods and stacking them in a very level area for milling . $400 for 8 hour rental , tax and fuel . He came back Friday all stoved up from working a 8 hour day . Worked 3 hours and could not do anymore due to pain . Stuck out his hand for pay . I thought he was there for the day . Wife had left with checkbook . So I had to call her back to pay him . Really would not accept check being mailed . Too stove up to work more during my stay . My conclusion is he is not used to working a full day anywhere . So it was a frustrating trip . I have no desire to have him cut at his leisure this fall and risk theft of unattended lumber . Nor paying without checking board feet cut . As the saying goes in God we trust
everybody else pay cash . So I contacted another sawyer who works by the hour and not board feet . He is portly and out of shape . Not worth $65 dollars a hour IMO . Works at the Lumber yard and milling is his side job . Not paying by the hour when I am not there . I may try using them both if the one will go to board feet . I want it done by May 7 . I pay when I get there and check board feet . There is still about 3 to 4 full days of milling work to be done with $2000 to $2500 in wages to be earned . This local already lost 5 hours of bobcat work due to me doing it because he would not . I will be looking all winter on the sawmill exchange for a good used unit up to $8000 . I am prepared to do it myself if need be . I will show up and work 8 to 10 hour days until done . That may be the fastest . I have to convince DW the purchase is needed . Need to work up a material list and cost for purchased lumber . I could sell the mill when done . Depends on how much I can recover selling the mill when done . Anyway I can cut lumber cost compared to purchasing lumber . So rant is over .
 
Sorry to read about your difficulty with the Sawyer Jerry. I am not that surprised, as my wife deals with the same thing on an ongoing basis in her business. It has become very difficult to find people that will be on time and work a full day.
 
Oh ugh, jerry. Sorry that happened to you. The lack of drive in the workforce these days is unprecedented.

What a difference a day makes. From yesterday in the mid 60's and gloriously sunny. To gray low skies and cold drizzling rain. Yuck.

Tucked the chooks in... They've already roosted. And cleared cobwebs from the coop and run. Inside and outside. Still need to do a winter prep on the coop. But I think I still have some time. It's down to about 1/2 hours work or so. Running power, bunking bales of hay along the outside and dusting off the cookie tin heater. I never took the plastic off the run this year. So that's done. Lol. Will get wood ashes for dusting once my folks start burning wood in their fireplace.
 
So I sold this family some ducks and hens in May. They just decided that they didn't want them anymore and they put them up for sale on a Facebook group
First of all I thought ridiculous prices
400




Then they sit here and say that the duck was champion breeding duck!? He was only first place drake and did not get Champion Breeding Waterfowl. Unless they happened to show him..
400

Also he got that 3 years ago when I showed him not you...
And then the White Californian x Chantecler is laying she will be a year on November 6. She was laying when you bought her...

Just made me angry... I might buy the birds back and just winter them here cause I loves that Rouen and pekin. And the stars were good layers and the chantecler x white Californian was really pretty
 

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