I heard that phrase this morning while getting ready and the girls were watching a cartoon. I thought, "how fitting for what is going on right now". When I came back to the world of blogging this week, I figured at some point I would tell about our fiasco/woe that is shadowing us around .
We live/lived in the middle of a pine tree plantation. We have talked for years about getting our trees cut for the timber money and also to start getting the land like we want it. It was the most fesible (sp?) way to get our land cleared and pasture started. Also, it is what the land was planted for. But every year we have someone come out and tell us that our trees are not big enough. Recently the land owned by a company at the entrance to our driveway was clear cut and then we find out that one of the land owners on our road is also having his cut in the near future....our trees were just as big if not bigger than his. So we talk about it and both agree that if we can get the right price for all the trees that we would have the trees clear cut because once the other land owners is cut it will all look crappy anyway. We find out that a man from church who owns some land before you get to our house off the main road is also having his cut and we call this buyer. Now this is a guy who came out last year or was supposed to or what not. At this point, I don't remember because there have been so many. He tells Mike that he used to plant plantations and knows how many trees are per acre and that we are looking at ________being the price. This is substantially more than we have heard in the past and is not an outrageous number because now we are wanting it clear cut and only a few trees saved so this makes sense to us. Anyway, he tells Mike that the cutting will start on Sunday (this is a Friday that he has called him back to tell him this and that he has looked at the property). So we say, ok go ahead. They show up and start cutting and then start hauling the next day. Once he finally shows back up on Tuesday with a contract we find out we will get a check every Monday. Still ok here. Now let me just say this....I am not a math genius. Don't claim to be, don't want to be but I can look at something and figure out a ballpark figure and at this point on Tuesday I don't see us coming anywhere near the price he told us. So we wait until the following Monday and get our first check. Yeah, Ms Not a Math Whiz was right....we won't be coming anywhere near the price. In fact, I question whether or not we will come to some of the lower quotes that we were given from other people. Well Mike calls him and he will not answer. Finally, he gets in touch with him and he admits he never came here to look at the land and was just basing it off what he knew about planting per acre. Now Mike is ill about this and tell him he needs to remedy this situation somehow. And we wait until Monday when we were supposed to get another check. Today is Friday....nada check in sight. Supposedly, he has not paid the cutters either which are a completely different outfit than what he is. He is just the middle man and these guys have worked for him before without problems. We also find out that he quoted a rather large sum of money to the landowner that told us about him and the cutters are saying that he will be lucky to get another price. Let's just say he went from 5 figures down to barely 4.
Ok so why am I venting about this. Well you see, you will probably hear a lot about this in the next few weeks from my husband. Me? Well, I tend to move off of things like this but keep it in the back of my head for future knowledge. Also, because here is where Mike and I are completely different. I am a doormat, I let people run over me, let stuff build up, and am the more rational of the two and I have abnormally low blood pressure. Mike, well the description of me does not even remotely apply to him. So if he vents to you, just listen and help keep his blood pressure down and please be his accountability brother. I would greatly appreciate it. I wish I could say that there will be a good outcome of this and this guy will do the right thing but I am not very hopeful. In fact, I cried Wednesday when I watched the guys leave. It is very disheartening to know that people are crooked even if you expected it anyway in this world that we live in. And I also feel very violated that we have basically been robbed, even if they were just trees. This was a nest egg for us and a way to get a few things done around here. I hope this guy is enjoying his crookedness.
*yes I cried over trees this week. Not the ones in AU, though. No offense AU people but it is a major gripe of mine that the tree killer is in so much hot water but a guy that threatened to shoot up an elem school was released on bail this week. But that my friends, is a post for another day when I am not pregnant and don't have to worry about my abnormally low blood pressure rising. *
