The journey begins - purchased a truck.

Well - we needed a diversion. So here we go.

THIS LITTLE GUY - turned up on the doorstep, heard him meowing from across the field, bee-line for our house. Fed him. Tried the "You stay outside tonight and go harass the neighbors". Nope. Waited all night and there in the morning. Loveable little fella - jumps all the way up to your head and sits on your shoulder, purring the whole time.




PROBLEM - THIS GUY - don't like him. He's the rescue from the Flying J in Iowa. Loyal as all getout. Perimeter protector, You're the man, I love you, I'm really a puppy in disguise. Nope - not happy.




So - with much pain, I drive 60 odd miles to a no-kill shelter called Haven of the Ozarks, in Cassville, MO. Donate $100 and hand him over. He slept in my lap the whole way. Then crawled all over their shoulders. The director of the place took him home for the kids.

HERE HE IS NOW!



Which leads me to this story - The following picture is 3 truckloads of pain. Look closely.



So - my good friend is a fledgling into commercial warehousing (this is a brand new warehouse he built), and waste recovery - making money from waste streams where you're paid to remove waste, then turn around and make money on it. So -

He signs up for 1 truckload of dog treats, still in date, no defects, from a HIGH $ brand producer. Discontinued line, slow seller, whatever the reason, they're cleaning house. About $5,000 they paid him to take it off their hands. 30% protein content.

Turns into 3 truckloads - 156 pallets, 17% protein, so he dings them another $2,000.

The product MUST be depackaged before further disposal. He's got hunting dogs, so does his buddies, Cows could feed the chicken based product, land apply the beef based for crops.

Problem is - depackaging. After trial and error, we found it takes 5 people about 1 hour to depackage 1 pallet. Into super sacks. Sucks most of the profit from the load into labor - plus the waste disposal of plastic and cardboard - whilst still clean, the packaging is mixed grade plastic, and cardboard doesn't pay anything since China stopped buying our waste.

So - Gretchen and I depackage 2 pallets of dog treats, into feed sacks, and donate them to the Haven of the Ozarks. The first pallet , they took - the second pallet, they put the brakes on due to storage concern - luckily their volunteers took them home to return later for use.

I did the math - $8/bag for these things retail. 8 bags per box, 100 boxes a pallet.

Total retail value - $12,800.

So there's a happy story for you. The kitty (Smudge I called him), is happy as can be, the dogs at the Haven are in treats for months, and I did something to help all the adorable little creatures because . . . lately . . .

HUMANS SUCK.