I haven't been very faithful to my blog. My scheduling seems to be "off".

I am not still up tonight, I am already up this morning.

It has been one of those kinds of weeks. Krl has been wound up tighter than you can imagine, and I feel for her.

We have two customers, one in Laredo, one in La Port, that we have hauled for frequently. The one in La Port has always been difficult to collect from, but not impossible. The one in Laredo will get behind, Krl can chastise them and they will get caught up.

Both of these customers owe amounts totalling over $14,000. Not a huge amount, but large enough that our little company is sucking wind. Of course by the time we do collect, all of our expenses have been pre-paid. So, that makes it even more important to "maintain" a good cash flow.

Earlier in the year, the customer from La Port told Krl that things were tight because her daughter was getting married. I don't know why this should affect the business. If it does, something about the structuring is not right. Thing is, since the wedding, it hasn't gotten better, it has gotten worse. Add to this the fact that this woman has given her sister and another lady jobs. I think these people's job is to keep the people trying to collect money away from the owner. For three weeks she has promised money, going so far as to give Krl and Trc check amounts and telling them when they went in the mail. Needless to say, if I am venting these checks have never arrived.

The other company is a Mexican owned business. It is usually pretty interesting to see the checks written in Spanish for millions and millions of pesos. Of course the checks are drawn on American banks. We work with a gentleman, not the owner, and he and Krl have established a rapport over the last ten months. Usually Krl can bark and Pete will get a check for her. The past three weeks, this has not happened.

Recently I had told Krl if she was going to continue to dispatch Pepa's truck, she needed to cover the fuel. I guess I have created a two headed monster. It has made a difficult money situation even worse.

It would be a much better world if people did what they said they were going to do.

I have been spending some time at work, building and replacing hydraulic hoses on bale clamps. I have leased two of these out for the coming season. I am hopeful that these will be trouble free. I may be barking at shadows. I know these machines will think they are on holiday from the seasonal jobsite. They may handle six hundred bales a day at two locations instead of the 1500 bales every twenty-two hours.

I did do some quick figuring, and these two machines and the three clamps (I have a spare) have handled 930,000 bales in fifteen years, or 437,ooo bales in the last four. The forklifts have changed multiple times, eleven if I am correct in remembering. Two of the clamps are "originals". Outside of hoses, slide inserts and cylinder packings, not much can go wrong.

I am hopeful that by being diligent in my preparations, I won't spend a lot of time working on machines at the jobsite. At times I get to worrying, but then I calm myself, knowing that if we had returned to the seasonal work, these are the two machines I would have taken. That tells me I have confidence in the machines.

If things go well today and this afternoon, I plan on bringing a truck back to the shop when I come home. This truck has been in the shop three different times for the same oil leak. While the shop is "eating the do-overs", it sure is aggravating.

I did get an e-mail from our former-insurance agent. She told me that when we were getting ready for our annual renewal, the underwriter had put $7800 in reserves to settle the accident the little wild man had in Lamesa. Our driver says he had a green light when he entered the intersection and a woman pulled in front of him. No citations have been issued. BUT, since we went with a new agent and new provider, the old underwriter increased the reserve from $7800 to $420,000 dollars. I think it is a case of sour grapes, trying to make the new insurance underwriter think we are a "risk".

I am not concerned about the amounts, because that is not at or near our limits, but I am concerned about the "why".

Right now, I am sure praying and pulling for our mail man.

Have a day!

FATHER, we are struggling. Help us to find a way to be effective in collecting the delinquent monies. We know that YOU are faithful to meet our needs. I pray for a blessed seasonal work as we expand our boundaries. Bless us, Oh LORD!