Current Newsletter

Our new store is coming along nicely. By the first or second week of June, the interior should be mostly complete. Denise has been painting the offices and restrooms, and working on staining the natural wood surfaces. It is a good thing she loves to paint! I am just the opposite, in fact, she won't allow me to paint anything inside (doesn't bother me). All of the colors, inside and out, have been her choice. She has quite a talent that way. When the materials for the building arrived, some of the guys were wondering about how the colors were going to look, but after it was up, everyone loved it! The interior of the building is sheeted with red corrugated metal with some galvanized metal accents. It really looks quite good! You will have to see the office, break room and restroom colors. She is not afraid to pick bold colors and even repaint, if it is too much! At one point the break room was over-the-top bold. Didn't bother Denise, though, she just repainted three of the walls and wow, does it look nice!

So the big question is, when can we move in? As of today, we are still waiting for PG&E to get us powered up. Most of the inspections having to do with the building cannot be completed without electricity. We are supposed to hear something from them by the end of this week (our application was submitted last August, so if you need new service for one of your projects, get your application into PG&E as soon as possible. It is a slow process). We already did the underground work for the service. PG&E needs to put up a couple of poles and set a transformer. After we get a construction date from them we have some more trenching to do, sidewalks to pour, etc.

Once we can get all the saftey/health issues signed off by the county they will grant us a temporary occupancy permit to use the building. Then the old store comes down and more grading takes places, and finally a parking lot goes in . During this period it is our plan to route our customers around the left side of the property to the employee parking lot, behind the barns. This will be a little tight, but should only be for a two or three week period, if we coordinate everything well.

This project wears me out! Denise keeps telling me to "enjoy this construction project part of our lives." I am really trying, but, honestly, I can't wait 'til it's done!

The Hay Story

This hay season is one for the history books! The lack of late spring rains resulted in low tonnage rye and grain hay crops. On the flip side low tonnage usually means finer-stemmed, better quality hay, and so far that is what we are seeing. The lower tonnage and high quality also usually mean higher prices, and that is playing out as well. In addition to being in shorter supply, other economic factors, such as rising grain prices caused by increased foreign demand and making ethanol out of corn, are contributing to record prices for hay and grain.

We are working very hard to make sure supply is adequate to last through the year. Last year, due to short supply and high demand, we unexpectedly ran out of rye by November. We do not want that to happen again! We are still using last year's alfalfa. Experience has shown us that it is best to wait until third cutting new crop. They are already cutting second cutting, so it's about 30 days 'til new third cutting alfalfa. We are committed to making sure we have a good quality product to sell you.

Thank you for your support in working with us through this construction project. We appreciate it!

--Roland