Upson Downs

Upson Downs was Originally Posted on February 3, 2012 by lavarock

There was a cute phrase used in cartoons to describe a horse racing venue, Upson Downs which probably well described the outcome people had while gambling on the horses. They would have their ups and downs.

My week has been kinda like that. Well not really, but I needed a theme

In October I was browsing the Clark Howard website and in the forums a woman had expressed desire to start a website. She had been quoted very high prices for a site and shopping cart and I sent her a message and offered to help. For about $70 I got her a cart, hosting, a new telephone number and helped set things up. That is a pretty reasonable price for a year I think!

Two things happened to thwart her though. The first was that she really had no customers. Although she was selling her product locally (I think at flea markets), I don’t think she had other ways to advertise her products. I personally use my blog and other forums to talk about it. If you read here often you see a lot of talk about my farm and the coffee and what do I sell? Coffee (well, when I have some).

Her second issue was that her husband just took a job in another state and they are moving. She has no time for the business at present and if you have ever moved, you know that running a business at the same time is insane.

So I have disabled the site for now, but it may be down fofr the count.

I am so glad that I helped her with this project though. She is currently out a few dollars compared to the very expensive price other sites wanted to charge her. In her case she also had things set up for her.

On another topic, I have been cleaning up the coffee trees, which requires adjusting branches and picking dead cherry from the trees, etc. The day before yesterday I got about 3/4 of the way done when the trees began to blossom. I had been watering them alot because we have been in another draught period. Water causes them to become active. Who would ahve thought?

Because of the flowering, I had to stop. Disturbing the flowers or interfering with the bees causes you to not get cherry, which developes into coffee beans. Did you know that I grow coffee and sell it? Just checking if you have been following along!

Without going to the house to get gloves, I switched to digging vines away from the trunks of the young fruit trees. I was using a small scythe-like device with a serrated blade and nicked my left thumb. THAT pretty much stopped my bust of working energy for the day.

I went inside and licked my wounds, so to speak and did some computer work. I also tested out a Roku box I was giving as a gift.

Yesterday I did laundry and headed up to town to deliver and set up the gift. I got a call from the coop that they needed me to help package the meat as we had one person who couldn’t come and about 600 pounds of beef headed there. I quickned my pace. Stopping by Walmart, I dropped off a prescription and got gas at COSTCO. I noticed about 30 cents a gallon difference from another station I saw nearby.

As I headed up mauka (up the mountain) I noticed the air was fairly clear. I say fairly because we still have a volcanic haze; still it was a happy sight.

I spent about and hour and a half with the setup, then headed home. I had a Subway gift card so stopped in Waikoloa shopping center and grabbed lunch. Back to Walmart to pick up my medicine and then off to the coop.

We cut and sorted the meat and repackaged it. A couple people bought steaks but for the most part, the meat will be given to dogs and cats.

My dogs will be having beef heart, tripe, skirt meat and an assortment of bones this week. I got some beef ribs and soup bones (with lots of meat on them) for the dogs. because we buy directly from the producer, we get very good prices. The beef is all USDA inspected and grass fed here on the island. The owner of the company just got a grant to increase her processing plant. That means for us here on the island, the meat will be more readily available than that stuff sent in from the mainland.

It used to be, before we started the coop for feeding our pets, half of every cow went to the landfill. The producer paid to dump the meat.Now there are parts of the cow that we are using and getting at great price, giving the producer a profit instead of a loss and saving landfill space. Definately a win-win-win all the way around.

When I got home last night to feed the dogs, they knew I had fresh meat with me. O`Lena tried to get into the cooler in the back of the truck. They dined on beef heart and raw meaty bones and slept well.

By the way, the Pet Food Coop also uses a website and shopping cart. I should have a few empty sites already set up and ready. Not that it takes me more than a couple days to get one ready.

Finally, I set up a demo for a friend of mine who in a couple months, will be headed to the U.K. for a trip. He was asking how he could cheaply call the U.S. from there. I laughed. Readers here know that I already have some free inbound telephone numbers (London and Glasgow Scotland). I also have a Obi110 unit I have spoken here about which cost me all of $50. I also have a Google Voice account which gives me U.S. and Canada calls for free.

I configured the OBI to accept the inbound calls from the UK, ask the caller for a password, then give them access to dial a U.S. number through Google Voice. Seemed a simple enough solution. If he wants to travel around outside of the Londow or Glasgow areas, I still have 8 more numbers I can add to the account for free. he will just have to pay for using a pay phone to a local number where he is.

I wanted to set up some numbers around the area anyway. “If calling from Sherwood Forrest, the number is…”