Sweat Equity

The trial run to see if our new coolers would safely transport frozen food Cedar Hill to Kanawha was not without a few hitches. Mike and I hit Costco first and found a small supply of frozen food items that were intended for resale to the average family. My guess is the ratio of frozen to refrigerated is about 10 to 1. From this you must subtract anything you think is not going to sell well in your store or not in small enough quantity. So the broccoli that comes in four smaller bags is perfect but we passed on 96 burger patties. After gathering all the suitable products we headed for Sams where I thought the pickin's might be better. Corn on the cob that separated into two 12 ear bags and Pillsbury pastries that were designed to be seperated into boxes of 6 sounded great. The other items I found will work well in the store freezer, but the corn on the cob and the stroodles were glued together so tightly they had to be repackaged. Which leaves us to question can a person survive on corn on the cob and strawberry stroodle for a month? The cooler unit worked great even in a 100 degree day. Mike and I almost had a melt down though, unloading everything. A cooler large enough to span the back of the truck is much heavier loaded.

Milk Wars...Oak Farms gave us the low down on the milk wars. Seems Kroger decided to take on Walmart with $1.99 a gallon milk. Walmart responded by matching their price and Brookshires was left to call them on it or bow out. So here we are knowing the price Oak farms can sell us milk at and looking at the $1.99 a gallon price in Brookshires for our own use this week. We checked it out in Cedar Hill and our Kroger had the same below cost price. I doubt this hurt those large companies and no doubt recipes with milk were popular, but the prices are going back to normal now. We hope to have some normal to prices in the immediate future. seems Oak Farms has closed the refrigerators in the Paris Oak Farms and trucks run from somewhere else. It is a shame as those folks in Paris are real nice.

The Bread Business is another story. Earth Grains which used to be Merico sold to Sara Lee and became Little Debbie which filed for chapter 11 in May. So we remembered the Mrs Bairds truck on 195 and read how the truck routes were offered to the employees who drove them and those who chose to were in business for themselves. Other routes were closed down. Fortunately we can get bakery items at Costco and Sams in small enough quantities to resale.

I spent three days on inventory. It is way more than I anticipated but hopefully this fill the store project is a one time thing as refill should be much easier. I found some really revealing wholesale prices that left us with great retail prices unfortunately I found an item that will take our family a good while to use as I bought a whole case. Guess I can mull that over how that happened while I munch on corn on the cob and stroodle. So far most of the prices look fair and some are down right bargains.

While we were sweeping june bugs one morning, Edna Maddox stopped by to visit. She is a member of the Woodland Methodist church and invited us to attend. Upbeat and friendly we hope she will come again. Later that day we had two handsome young gentlemen stop to ask for a cold drink. Unfortunately we are not ready for customers, but they said they will return once we are open.

We are waiting for our first Kanawha electric bill with the Air Conditioners running. Enough to make a person nervous as we have not even opened for business. We are playing AC tag with the two trailers and the store, running the units where we are working and turning the others high or off.
Because it was hovering at or above 99 degrees I understand the term sweat equity! When we arrived back in Cedar Hill, Bill had been paying house and store bills so he had raised the temp in the house to 78, this is a two story so the upstairs was "cookin'" at about 83 degrees.

A funny thing happened when I turned on both AC units. They tripped a breaker. My Daddy was incredibly mechanical. He inherited this gene from his Draper line. His grandmother was a Lynn and they have some documented feats in this regard. I on the other hand am a total zero, possibly in the negatives if possible. So alone with the breaker box and labels from three different store owners, I did the only thing that came naturally. I turned off everything, just flipped them all. It was action or lay down and cry. After I realized maybe that was not so smart I had no time for tears. Remember there are no phones that work, so on my own I found the breaker for the units and remembered to turn them on one at a time. I also found the freezer breaker before it came off the 20 degree mark and we are all still trying to find out what else I turned off in my haste to "fix" it. I put this right up there with getting used to spiders in the sink. It all comes down to how much you really want a store.

Canadian's are 2 feet short.

The new/used trailer was set in place snug in the middle between Mike's small trailer and the store north wall. The hutch from the dining room and dresser out of our bedroom in Cedar Hill were in the store after two trips by Bill and sons. Mike went job hunting in the surrounding area. Bill and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary. Will and Mike moved 20 feet of 8 foot high shelving seven feet. The Sears refrigerators and freezers were delivered. Bill and Mike sawed and nailed for three straight days. This finished the window surround and the enclosure for the ac units. The shelf for large bags of animal feed is complete thanks to Mike's sawing several dozen wood slats. Will drilled holes so the strips that seal the plywood could be attached. He sawed them to length and nailed them in place. Bill determined that Van knew what he was doing when he wired the store, as we have separate breakers for each plug along the south wall.

After a long week we are back in Cedar Hill for another load, fresh laundry and some good byes to Bill and Will. Mike and I have a long list of to-dos over the next two week span. Part of this includes transfering our insurance to a company Stephen told us about. It sure helps to have a son who has been in the area a while.

Do not believe the Frigidare people when they email you to say you have 8 feet of cord on each unit they make. Those Canadians think 6 is 8. The men who mow along the roadside left us a neat path to the sign in Woodland so it is measured. Woodland has a new venture. The little building with a bay has become a car repair shop. The road crew stopped to tell us to carry bait...minnows and worms. A cat stopped by to share our ham sandwich and Will named her Fay-Lee to which she did not respond, however she liked the scratching behind the ears and later that evening she brought a friend. Will is especially fond of cats and highly allergic to them. He gets around this by washing his hands after petting.

The plan was adjusted for those short Canadian cords, and the store seems on target to open in July.