Grrrrrr, it's so frustrating being in business around here. :angrysoapbox:
At the start of last year I decided to go into the firewood business. When the snow melted I bought a bunch of permits and went into the forest to load up on the slim pickings I could find. When I finally did land on a good source I hired two guys and rented a big truck to go fetch it. Ya know, I'm thinking I'm doing a good thing. I provided a couple of people with a job they needed and liked, and I also was spending a pretty fair amount of dough with the local truck rental company. I'd load up my pickup and put a sign on it, "Early bird special. This load $140." That's not a lowball number for pine by any standard.
Then I had a problem with my toe in May and ended up having to have it amputated. Problems after the surgery kept me out of the forest, but I was still able to put out the pickup and move a few loads that way. I think I'm doing something beneficial for my local community since there aren't a lot of options for firewood out here in the middle of nowhere. Because I'm seeing some success I decide to buy my own big truck so I could bring in more wood without having to rent one. I also put up a sign in a couple of places advertising that I had firewood to sell. No prices, just MikeTheFirewoodGuy.com and my phone number. Well, that was a mistake. Apparently I pissed off a competitor, who filed a complaint with the county against me. In August I was in the hospital and my wife brings me a letter from the county. In it is a demand to stop my wood business, because I'm not allowed to run it on on my own property. Oh, I also have to get rid of my truck and remove the trailer that's been sitting on the ground for the last 30 years and my backhoe that I use to clear the road of snow for us and all my neighbors so we don't have to be rescued from being snowbound. What a friggin nightmare. I had to move my wood yard off my property. It went to a friends house a couple of blocks away. I wrote them back and told them I'd stop doing wood on my property, but they could pound sand when it came to my truck, tractor and trailer. I do have to say, the gal I was dealing with from the county really bent over backwards to work with me, but in the end I still had to build a $2,000 fence and put a fake 'barn' appearance on the trailer. She had to not see a trailer when standing directly in front of it in my front yard and that made it not be there. She could take one step sideways and see a full 40' of trailer, but as long as she could stand directly in front of it, it wasn't really there.
I moved the truck and tractor for the final inspection so they didn't exist either.
How stupid and an utter waste of tax dollars. I live over 20 miles from town, out in the middle of nowhere. Why are these people screwing with me?
Then, I went to California in my truck for some wood up in Truckee. There's a weigh station so I figured I had to go through it because I had a fairly big truck. They flag me for inspection. The truck's fine, but they tell me I have to have a class B license to drive it. I explain to them that the truck is licensed and registered at 25,999 lbs. GVW and that Nevada says I can drive it on my class C license. Nope! The truck has a door tag that rates it at 28,000 LBS. GVW, so that's what 'they' go by. I tell them I don't really give a ####, it's legal to drive in Nevada. "So it is, but not in California". The cop was nice enough to let me go back to NV, but I can't drive it into CA. I can't get an Interstate Class B license because I'm an insulin dependent diabetic.
So the other day I want to go over to my buddy's house to finish splitting the wood I have over there. He wants me to call first to let him know I'm coming over. NO answer. I leave a message but no call back. I leave several more messages but still no reply. He had asked me to let him know I was coming over and preferred that I not come unless he's there. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this. I leave another message saying that if he's upset with me about something, we can't work it out if we don't talk. He calls me back a few minutes later and tells me he's really pissed at me because I didn't live up to my end of our deal.
The deal was, I can use his splitter all year in exchange for two cords of wood. I got to thinking about it and went back the next day to change the deal. I said I was planning on bringing in 100 cords of wood and two cords was simply not enough for him. He said he burns 5 cords per winter. I said he could have whatever it took to get him through the winter. I also agreed to maintain the (15 year old Craftsman 27 ton) homeowner class splitter. When all the BS went down with the county he offered to let me use his property for my wood lot. When I started bringing wood into his property I told him, "Take what you want from the pile. You don't have to ask, you don't have to measure, you don't have to let me know you took any or all of it. If you want it, take it."
So when I got there and ask him what's wrong, he goes off on me saying I screwed him. All I'm interested in is splitting wood and selling it, and I sold off all the seasoned wood and now he had to go out and buy wood because all I had left was green wood and it doesn't burn very hot. I told him "Yes, all I'm interested in is splitting and selling wood. It's because I'm in the firewood business. I don't touch a piece of wood without a monetary reason for doing so".
About a month ago the splitter started running crappy. We took the carb apart and it was all gummed up. This is a Tecumseh 6½ HP motor. Do I have the carb cleaned? No. Do I replace the carb? No! I buy a brand new 7 HP B&S Intek commercial grade motor to the tune of $300. This thing had twice the power of the old motor. That didn't matter because I wore the 15 year old motor out with the large amount of wood I did with it, (about 45 cords). You see, when the splitter was new it was strong like the new motor is now, and even though it would die under stress when I first started using it, it was running fine before I started using it. I said I obviously felt the same, otherwise I wouldn't have replaced the motor instead of just cleaning the carb.
So before I can take any of the wood, I have to get rid of all the bark and junk that's accumulated from all the splitting. Agreed, as we had also agreed when I started bringing wood there. So my guy and I load all the crap, which he had mixed in with a bunch of his horse ####, but I'm not going to push it. When I'm ready to leave I knock on the door and tell him I'm sorry he's upset about this but he's welcome to take whatever amount of wood that's left that he feels he's entitled to. I'll come back in the morning to take what's left and finish cleaning up. "Fine" he said.
I call the next morning to let him know I'm on the way over, I get the voice mail. He's screening my calls again. So I leave a message saying I'm on the way over and I figure he's out in the yard chucking his part of the wood, so I'll see him when I get there. I get there and he hasn't moved a single piece of wood. So we start loading the truck. About 15 minutes later he comes out of the house, yelling at me for coming on his property uninvited. I said I called, and also told him I'd be here in the morning, which he agreed to. He went into the house.
So we're throwing wood on the truck as fast as we can because I know he's going to be a problem. Just before we get the truck maxed out he comes out and says he's leaving in 10 minutes and so am I. Sure! We load for the 10 minutes and he comes out to start his truck. I call him over to what's left and tell him that I had intended to split the pile along this line, but since there was only a little bit left on my side, I was just going to give it to him. "Whatever! I don't care" he says. So he walks over to his truck and I follow him to ask when he's coming back. He tells me he doesn't know. I told him I'll call him later to arrange a time to come over and finish the cleanup. He tells me he doesn't want me on his property ever again. Whatever.
So now, I've got property I can't use, a truck I can't drive, and no splitter. Talk about can't win for losing.
