Thursday - evening

Typical late start day.  Get up there in 2 hours 18 minutes, scale in, drive to the shack, spend X amount of time there, drive back to scale, get out of there.  Just feels like a very long day when you don't get back until after 5:00 when I'm normally getting back from Gurdon around 2:00 ish - give or take depending on how long it takes to pump the glue out of there.

Anyway....the farmers. They had decided to leave because they were being shot at by - lasers.  Not laser pointers, but actual lasers. I sat there and listened to this story after I got back from the run today.  Well, first off, then they changed their minds and said they would stay another month.  I'll listen to anyone's story regardless, some of the things people conjure up in their minds is pretty interesting, even more so if they actually believe the stuff they are saying.

Lol.  So, a snapshot of the story goes like this:  they were farmers for 50 plus years.  I'm sure they were, why would they make that up? He said they were selling about a quarter million dollars worth of produce off of their land every quarter.  Ok? Yes, well we were taking business away from - it's a chain local to Texas, supermarket with a lot of medium sized and a few larger sized store.  People had stopped buying their produce because they were going to these farmers to buy it from them instead.  Pretty typical, people like to stop at those stands and buy fresh produce right from the farm.

Then we get to the conspiracy theory.  The corporate people decided they didn't like this and somehow enlist the government to hire people to shoot lasers at them.  He then produced a large number of pictures both showing lasers being shot and the damage they had done to their skin.  A man sitting up on a cell tower (this wasn't at my park, this was a few years ago) was one such person and he had pics of him, his pickup and the light beams that he claimed were lasers.  

I don't want to go too far with this on here, who knows who's reading this blog and I am not trying to start trouble.  Not with them or anyone.  Some of the pics were rather ghastly looking, tho, the damage from these lasers or - whatever caused it to happen to their skin.  

Take all of that for what it's worth.  He then started asking about my tractor - he's a farmer.  I don't have a tractor, I replied, but I've been looking into buying one. They want a lot of money for one and I don't want to spend that much money - or really - I don't want payments that high.  So he starts telling me about his John Deere tractor and the he might be interested in financing it for me.  How much do you want to pay? He had already told me a price of 18k including several attachments.  

Well, I want to keep my payments around $300 per month, John Deere wouldn't budge in their price or payments so I just finally said no to them.  Well, what if I were to owner-finance for you?  I had no idea he was going this direction with the conversation, so he sort of caught me by surprise.  Ok....do you  have anything for a down payment? Umm, well I do, but I'd have to look to see how much I could afford, I can get back to you on that.  

I came up with a figure in my mind but I didn't want to say anything right away.  These people are loaded with money, they sold their farm and they are set for life.  But, you know, if you have something worth something, you aren't going to just give it away. If I put 3k down on a tractor, it comes out to 4.16 years worth of payments at $300 per month, not including if they are charging interest.  You say, well, I thought you were going to sit on that money?  Yes, I was and thinking of getting another septic system.

Unfortunately, the price of the same size septic system as what I already have has gone up almost 2 grand in price.  It wasn't shocking to see the contractor texting me that price today, everything is going up, not surprising his costs are going up with it and therefore, dumping it onto potential customers. 

It put the cost of one of them out of range.  I don't have $8,500 and I really need a tractor to boot.  I need both, really.  I have no clue, but if he'd take that kind of down money, I'd probably go for it.  However, I didn't want to just blurt out: Yes! I''ll give you 3k down right off the bat.  These are financial decisions that I really just need to think about first and see where it's going to leave me after the fact.  

I also need to find out what I'm going to be getting paid on new pay scale, which I will be finding out shortly.  

Anyway, the kids? One has guitar and soccer practice, actually the soccer practice is already going, but he had guitar practice first and the other has a baseball game that starts, get this, at 7:30 pm.  That seems a little late to start a game for 7 year olds on a school night, doncha think?  He'll be getting home way past his bedtime and even later actually getting to bed.  

I'm leaving for the soccer practice in a few minutes, the field is only 3 minutes away.  He was begging me to come, the other one wasn't asking me to go to the game, thankfully, I don't want to be out that late.  It's not really late, I guess, but I have first load tomorrow, meaning get up at 5:30 am. Back to normal.

So, that's it for now.