Shortages!

My thing is I try to shop local, I do have UFA in Athabasca, twice the drive and I hate that whole damm town the way its laid out the side of a river bank, but no doubt they good to deal with on most stuff. Least when you call them, they know exactly what they have, can give a price instantly. Will even hold an item(s) unpaid for two days...which is pretty good when you consider Coop resold plywood that was already paid for lol.
I needed some of my plywood to sheet in a pump house in early Dec, Coop had hired a new hardware manager, so he inherited the mess, was supposed to be working out something to replace the OSB as I had said I was willing to work him in that way, I didn't care, give me some spruce sheeting whatever, I know they always have damaged stuff, even suggested a package along those lines...never heard anything back. Then finally I needed some sheeting, gave Coop another chance for a sale, was gonna outright buy some spruce sheeting. They didn't want to be bothered to do up a quote as they call it, na we'll do it when you come in. So I show up the next day with the trailer, not only is no one around who really knows anything, the price has now went from 28 something to 42, I just simply said f'this and left. Called UFA, bing bang boom, 26 bucks fir sheeting, how many did I want...hour later we were loading. Showed where I should be going more often. So much for local.

Used to always get good service and pricing from Coop in Thorhild, blow Boyle right out of the water on just about everything, then several years ago there was a push to merge Thorhild with Boyle. Out of the local crowd, it was mostly the farmers who were against it, we were worried what had happened in Boyle would happen to Thorhild. Beginning in the early 2000s, Boyle pretty much got out of most ag related products, pretty much became a glorified hardware store, still some salts and minerals, twine and such, but piss poor selection and the attitude, well if you don't like it, we don't really care. Took a few years and it did, now Thorhild is no longer the way they used to be either. Which sucks. It was funny at one of the meetings during the whole merger affair, think it was a Newbrook, I wasn't there, but one of local women got rather outspoken when someone from Thorhild mentioned how great it would be for Thorhild to gain more ag business as result of the merger...thats when she stood up and pointed out that most every farmer member from Boyle already had a membership in Thorhild and they weren't gonna gain anything. Heard more than a few mouths hit the floor over that one, a lot of Thorhild membership really had no idea of how pissed off most from Boyle really were.

I was talking to my lawyer about some other issue a bit ago, and I asked him about this biz with Coop and the plywood, he gave me some good advice, next time talking to them about it, and they do their usual customer wrong, our staff are heroes routine, ask them to show me where on the invoice or posted in the store it is stated, items paid for but not removed by a specified time period will be returned to inventory and subject to refund only...needless to say, that don't exsit. Hate making it into a shit show, but at this point, they already know I bought the sheeting I needed from UFA and basically that I'm digging in...where it ends, guess we'll see. I'm not holding my breath though.

Was going through my receipts while getting my tax package together and noticed mesz I picked up in April was $790/mt and in mid May was $695/mt. So there is some history that prices don't always go up. Have to see what the stories will be in May.

Certainly not making me mad. Coop is a clusterf*ck and a monster at the same time. Local coop management is a rolling disaster. I could write pages of horrendous business decisions that nearly broke the whole thing, and chasing business away. They are certainly no threat to cornering any market here lol. In fact neighbouring independent coop set up shop in their territory with a farm supply and cardlock. We’re lucky here to have lots of buying options so coop hasn’t any stranglehold on us. The fuel side they do a great job and have lots of gas stations around the city. I think the elephant in the room is Federated swinging it’s mighty axe. They bailed enough of these idiots out and now they feel they can dictate local coops. Just another corporation.

It’s the electronic pieces that vehicles need that are in short supply I was told. Along with the plant slowdowns and part supply factory slowdowns. It all kinda snowballs into shortages of vehicles. Anybody try to buy a 2500 or 3500 truck lately.

Non-essential.

My Ram dealer at Waverly dodge wants me to trade up my 2018 outdoorsman, Used market is low supply also, but the problem is they have less new ones to chose from. All the desirable colours are picked over, and dont like the bumble bee yellow or lime green.haha. I was looking for a 2500 to pull nh3 tanks.
I think if trump was president he would have the big 3 auto plants working steady.

Yeah that purple plum would be pretty cool with chrome