Chapter 10 #2
Timber nodded. “She’s right. Look at Lindsey, who’s back and forth here on a regular basis as a volunteer, plus working her main accounting job, saving some time and some energy to cultivate her relationship with Sterling.
And our lovely Shirley here”—he gave her a hug—“is with Burke, and, as you’ve already seen, she’s damn good at her job. ”
She laughed. “At least I’m doing better than I was, as you’re not avoiding me quite so much.”
He winced at that. “I didn’t really want to avoid you at all.”
“Didn’t want to,” she teased, “is a long way from not.”
“I know,” Timber conceded. “I was really hoping to get away from all of it,” he admitted, “but it’s working out way better than I ever could have imagined.
On that note, I agree that I could do a couple things as well.
So, I’ll take a look and find materials and supplies we may be missing, yet need to get this done. ”
“Sounds good to me,” Shirley agreed. “Let me know too on the additional supplies as well, since we must keep our eye on the budget.”
“Right, and for that I also have to thank Lindsey and her bookkeeping skills,” he muttered, with a sigh. “Who knew I needed so many people?”
“It’s not that you need so many people,” Shirley clarified, smiling, “but it sure makes life a lot easier when you have the skilled people to make things happen, particularly for stuff like this.”
He nodded. “On that note, I’ll grab the materials that I need before the guys take it all.”
She burst out laughing. “That seems to be such fun among all the team.”
“Yes, fun.” He shook his head. “The competition for supplies is absolutely all in fun. But the minute we tag something that we need, we need to move it and put it away somewhere so that it’s still there when we need it,” he shared, with a laugh, “because, boy oh boy, can these guys go through materials.”
“And so can you,” she noted gently.
“I can and I am and I will, but they’re farther ahead of me than I expected.”
“That’s because they’re doing such a great job,” she declared, with a bright smile at him. “If you didn’t have quite so much on your plate with the paperwork in your office, then you could be out there more too.”
“And I will be out there tomorrow morning,” he vowed. “It’s really important to me that I work alongside each of these men who are pitching in time and effort to make this thing a reality.”
“Yeah, well, … today they were promised cinnamon buns,” she added, with a chuckle, “so I’m pretty sure that went a long way to keep them happy.”
He smiled. “Who knew that groceries, particularly that kind of groceries, would make such a difference?”
“I knew,” Toby declared at his side. “How do you think you got your bunkhouse finished today? The unmatched power of my cinnamon buns.”
Timber looked over at him and started to laugh. “Is that why everybody worked extra hard?”
“Yep,” he confirmed, with a big grin. “You know it.”
Joel was still laughing as he started over to the clinic to do an assessment on all the things he had offered to work on.
Timber called him back though. “How about using some of that mechanical expertise of yours to see what we might need for tools in the shop space here? As soon as we start bringing in machinery, we’ll need a working mechanic’s garage space and equipment.”
“Oh, now that I can do,” he replied, as he walked with Timber over to the big machine shed. “I thought you already had a bunch.”
“I have a little bit,” he said, “but nothing like what we probably need to deck out this garage.”
As Joel stepped inside, he looked around, his gaze immediately going to some of the heavy-duty equipment sitting at the ready. “Well, these are definitely primed and ready to get started.”
“They are, and that’s the good news,” Timber stated, “but we’ll run into plenty of things that we don’t have.”
“And some of that, you just can’t do anything about for now. You’ll just buy the tools as you go along,” Joel suggested. “But I can tell you without a doubt that you’ll need some pneumatic tools, a hoist, some heavy-duty pulleys and levers.” When he turned, Timber stared at him, wide-eyed.
Timber asked cautiously, “You got any idea how much that’ll cost?”
Joel grimaced, looked around, then replied, “Not exactly but I can tell you a lot.”
“Ten thousand dollars?” Timber guessed.
“Likely ten times that to start, although you’ve already got a hoist, right?”
“I do, but it’s old.”
“Yeah, but I can spruce that up,” he offered. “So that’s not a problem. Seems most of what you have here is old. Give me a chance to look at some of these, and then I’ll give you a better idea.”
“And if not necessary right away—”
“Got it. If necessary right away, you’ll buy it as you need it,” he agreed. “Yet, in some cases, it’s better to buy all of what you need at once because you can get better deals.”
“If you say so, but it sure sounds expensive,” Timber muttered.
Joel nodded. “Yeah, some of it will be quite pricey, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth getting it done right the first time. You don’t want to buy a cheap piece of machinery and still end up buying the better machine.”
“Oh, I’m not arguing that,” Timber acknowledged. “The issue is about money right now. I’m still trying to finish off buildings around here. Plus, we don’t have anything broken yet.”
Joel laughed. “I hear that, so just give me a chance to have a good look here. Then I’ll see what I can come up with.
” And with that, he gave up any idea of checking on supplies for his clinic projects and instead got to work doing an inventory of what they actually had for tools and what they would need to purchase for this mechanics’ shed.
Joel would keep in mind the expense overall and individually if needed because Timber didn’t have a ton of money available.
Well, that wasn’t quite correct. He did have a lot of money available, if only in business loans.
Still, he was putting a ton of those funds into various other projects already.
So that meant he could only spend so much at the moment, while they got other buildings completed.
Joel understood the timing problem and was grateful that, with his experience, he could think in terms of how much money needed to be spent on this. He also knew that the dollar figure could run up to something extremely high very quickly. With that thought, he got started.
Just as he walked around the machine shed, his phone rang. He looked down, and it was Chelsea. “Hey,” he said gently. “I didn’t even ask you this morning, did you have a good night?”
“I slept better than I expected. I had an interesting day.”
Something in her tone made him stop. “And?”
“I got a phone call from Gladys,” she began.
“And?”
She explained what the problem had been between the two of them, and he winced. “So, just another case of your mother’s roadkill.”
Chelsea had to laugh. “Yeah, that would be a good way to look at it. Roadkill, with my mom at the wheel.”
Then he heard the buzzing of another call on her phone.
“Damn,” she muttered. “The hospital is calling. I bet I’m doing another shift today. Gotta go.”