The Girls and Gals all got their horse ride under way. It is cloudy but warm weather wise. They should have a nice time. Will not make for the best photos being so cloudy.
The picture is of the worn out crew left behind. LOL they all followed me out to the shop office to hide/sleep. The cat in the middle is over 17 years old. She is getting real frail. She is always cold. She waits until the other dogs or cats go to sleep and then she cuddles up to them. At night she sleeps laying against the electric oil heater in the shop office. Her coat gets hot to the touch but she seems to love it.
I keep making more work for myself. Mandy is all excited by how I trimmed the horse shoes with the brass and nickle. She showed me how much those type of custom shoes will bring. She had some advertisements that showed them selling for as much as $125 for each shoe. WOW.
So she is going to come back later in the week for me to show her how to do it easily and cheaply.
I had a chance to talk to her about her business. She is doing very well. She caters to the upscale horse people. The truck and trailer rig is hers. She has paid for it in just a few years of hauling the few "special" horses for the well off owners. If they are going to a small horse trail ride or show she will take the horses and set up the whole rig for the people to use for the weekend. She says her trailer will comfortably sleep six people. It has all the things in it a RV has including a bathroom and cooking area. She says she gets $5000 grand a weekend within 300 miles of Chicago. Wow !!!
She says she is booked for almost all of the time from spring to fall. Her farriering business is what she does during the week. She says that she makes a good living between the two things.
She is not from a well off family. Her Dad is a butler of all things. So she grew up around the really well off and understands how to market services to them an make a good living doing it.
She is thrilled about the pattern idea and the dressed up shoes. She has many repeat customers so she can do a good job faster when she is actually with the horse/owner. They will not be standing around waiting on her to be done as much. She is going to make the shoes before hand. Then tag them for which horse/owner they go to. She says she will make a rack in her farriering trailer to story them in. She says the well off get a kick out of thinking they are getting "custom" made things. They want to have things to brag about to the other well off. She says a little thing like that will set her business apart from the others.
She said that her Dad showing her how to "wait" on people makes her horse transport business really pay off. She says she may have to act subservient to some of the well off but they pay handsomely for the privilege of doing that. Her words. LOL She has the whole horse groom out fit that looks like what you see on the TV shows about the old Kings and Queens. It all is marketing.
She wants to make the custom shoes to show what can be done on a special order basis. She said she made the mistake of being too cheap when she first started working with the well off horse people. She said they would not hire the cheapest person. They think that cheap means shoddy. She said she doubled her prices last year and her business went up 50%.
She thinks she can charge a $1000 for a set of custom shoes put on the horse. A set of the brass edged shoes would not have fifty dollars of materials in them.
She is trying to get me to make the shoes for her. I don't need more work. I am at the other end of my working life. I want to slow down not take on more stuff.
She works in a world I would never be comfortable in. I find it hard to fathom that people can have such amounts of money/income.
She was talking about one of her customers that pays two full time people to take care of four horses. Plus the stable fees at the place I talked about earlier. Plus she is paid a set fee to maintain the horses shoes each month. She says the owner may come out 3-4 time each year for an afternoon with the horses.
The picture is of the worn out crew left behind. LOL they all followed me out to the shop office to hide/sleep. The cat in the middle is over 17 years old. She is getting real frail. She is always cold. She waits until the other dogs or cats go to sleep and then she cuddles up to them. At night she sleeps laying against the electric oil heater in the shop office. Her coat gets hot to the touch but she seems to love it.
I keep making more work for myself. Mandy is all excited by how I trimmed the horse shoes with the brass and nickle. She showed me how much those type of custom shoes will bring. She had some advertisements that showed them selling for as much as $125 for each shoe. WOW.
So she is going to come back later in the week for me to show her how to do it easily and cheaply.
I had a chance to talk to her about her business. She is doing very well. She caters to the upscale horse people. The truck and trailer rig is hers. She has paid for it in just a few years of hauling the few "special" horses for the well off owners. If they are going to a small horse trail ride or show she will take the horses and set up the whole rig for the people to use for the weekend. She says her trailer will comfortably sleep six people. It has all the things in it a RV has including a bathroom and cooking area. She says she gets $5000 grand a weekend within 300 miles of Chicago. Wow !!!
She says she is booked for almost all of the time from spring to fall. Her farriering business is what she does during the week. She says that she makes a good living between the two things.
She is not from a well off family. Her Dad is a butler of all things. So she grew up around the really well off and understands how to market services to them an make a good living doing it.
She is thrilled about the pattern idea and the dressed up shoes. She has many repeat customers so she can do a good job faster when she is actually with the horse/owner. They will not be standing around waiting on her to be done as much. She is going to make the shoes before hand. Then tag them for which horse/owner they go to. She says she will make a rack in her farriering trailer to story them in. She says the well off get a kick out of thinking they are getting "custom" made things. They want to have things to brag about to the other well off. She says a little thing like that will set her business apart from the others.
She said that her Dad showing her how to "wait" on people makes her horse transport business really pay off. She says she may have to act subservient to some of the well off but they pay handsomely for the privilege of doing that. Her words. LOL She has the whole horse groom out fit that looks like what you see on the TV shows about the old Kings and Queens. It all is marketing.
She wants to make the custom shoes to show what can be done on a special order basis. She said she made the mistake of being too cheap when she first started working with the well off horse people. She said they would not hire the cheapest person. They think that cheap means shoddy. She said she doubled her prices last year and her business went up 50%.
She thinks she can charge a $1000 for a set of custom shoes put on the horse. A set of the brass edged shoes would not have fifty dollars of materials in them.
She is trying to get me to make the shoes for her. I don't need more work. I am at the other end of my working life. I want to slow down not take on more stuff.
She works in a world I would never be comfortable in. I find it hard to fathom that people can have such amounts of money/income.
She was talking about one of her customers that pays two full time people to take care of four horses. Plus the stable fees at the place I talked about earlier. Plus she is paid a set fee to maintain the horses shoes each month. She says the owner may come out 3-4 time each year for an afternoon with the horses.
