These and Those

These and Those was Originally Posted on November 23, 2004 by lavarock

So far I have delivered 3000 pounds of mac nuts to the local buyer, but have to wait another week or so for the check. The money from the nuts will pay off my leasehold fee and continue to qualify me as a farm for tax purposes. Of course, selling coffee also qualifies me as a farm, but so far, I made more money off the mac nuts than the coffee. The mac nuts were here on the property and I had no overhead for them, thus almost pure profit. With coffee, I had to get bags, clips, labels and so on.

I still appear to have another truckload of mac nuts left to pick, but I am off to other projects that need my time.

I am creating gift baskets as I write this. I don’t have them priced properly, so I will take them offline until I do. Until I have enough business I will not be able to buy gift item stock at wholesale prices. To keep the baskets reasonably priced, I buy items on sale and keep a low profit. This allows me to still offer bargains and build up the business. When I can buy wholesale, I will increase my profits yet still be able to offer the items at about the same price (or perhaps lower).

Still, unless a gift basket fits a need, it will not sell. Thus I will start by offering a number of different baskets with different sizes. Soon I’ll be able to determine if some of the products I chose are not “gift basket material”

For example, gift baskets will include such items as Macadamia Nuts, Calendars, Christmas Ornaments and Figurines, Jams, Coffee Cups and those individual Coffee Filters that I love so much; I wrote my own review for it!

I am adding drop-down boxes of choices within the baskets so that some items may be substituted for others. It will be interesting to see what choices people will make if they must choose between 2 different items. If time permits, I may be able to offer a complete choice of any item I have in stock to be put into an assortment where I don’t have to be constrained by specific sized baskets.

Speaking of baskets, currently I have fancy and plain baskets. Unfortunately, the plain baskets are larger than the fancy ones. So two gift baskets might be the same price but the fancy one would have fewer items, but look nicer. Decisions, decisions So whether my gift baskets succeed or fail, this will be a learning experience.

Yesterday I spent hours on the ladder fixing some of my gutters. They were broken years before I got here and some of the holes caused the stairs underneath to rot. I wanted to replace the stairs, but decided to replace the gutters first. Just recently I enrolled in a program, which will help cover much of the cost of a water catchment system. That system would gather rainfall to be stored for use on the farm plants. Water is usually collected from a roof… thus the gutters I need to replace. Rather than replace them now, I will wait to see what kinds are recommended for the catchment system. It will be a couple months before I know, but the patches I made will carry me through.

Speaking of that grant, it will also cover some of the items I need to perform prior to the new planting of 5 acres. This means that much of the needed farm work will have to wait a few months until I see what conservation recommendations are made.

On another front, I have received quite a bit of information lately and will be buying some needed farm supplies in the next week. I will be starting my own coffee plant nursery and need some fencing, PVC, matting, bags, dirt, etc. It will be fun designing the area and setting it up.

Yesterday I received my long-awaited Wal-Mart catalog. On the cover is a TV with DVD built in for a really nice price. I was holding this catalog in my hand when I turned on my current TV. The TV’s tuner went out and I had to hook up my VCR to the TV so I could see anything. Could this be an omen? In any event, last year I headed to Wal-Mart fort heir Day After Thanksgiving Day Sale and was pleasantly surprised by the crowd. Although it went all the way around the lot and we were standing there for hours, still, it had to be the best-behaved crowd I had ever been associated with. This is in deep contrast to recent reports on TV of sporting events. So, I will be in line early, taking advantage of the bargains. Last year I outfitted my kitchen with lots of appliances for next to nothing in cost. Those in the US should check all of their fliers for sales on Friday. Many tyes of stores will be offering sales. I found another sale I’d like to attend this year (MicroCenter in Marietta, GA), but alas, I’m stuck in Hawaii. Perhaps STUCK is the wrong word, but it will make YOU fell better not being here

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An aside: In choosing titles for these Blogs, I try to find a title, which combines the many topics I cover. Sometimes I do better than others. Also, sometimes I spend a lot of time thinking and other times the title just comes to me. In the case of this Blog the first title that came to mind would have been “Soup to Nuts” because I was talking about Mac nuts again, however, I would have had to go back and add something about soup, perhaps add a complete Thanksgiving theme. That was too much work. Then I thought about “This and That” as a way of covering multiple topics, but I already used that title I think. Thus I took that title a step forward and chose “These and Those”.