Retirement........

Rich Z said:

Well, one thing that will certainly be different in the future is that I won't dread the possibility of a strong hurricane making landfall right where we are at. In the past, that used to really worry me, because there would just be no way to evacuate all the animals. Which meant I would have had to choose to either tough it out and stay, regardless of the consequences, or abandon them and high tail it out of here. Not a pleasant choice to have to make......

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Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm pushing my own personal envelope on the issue this year. So far when we've chosen to evacuate we've been able to take all the animals. Living in hurricane country means always being aware of that and halfway planning for that eventuality no matter what time of year it is.

Being able to shed that particular worry must be an especially sweet part of retirement!

Yeah.... I don't think many people realize how the burden of feeling responsible for so many animals can wear on you. Heck, I can remember one year during an especially dry Spring we had a forest fire in the Apalachicola National Forest close enough that still smouldering embers will falling in our yard. Connie and I were out with hoses just watering down everything around the buildings so if the fire came too close it would be tougher to ignite the underbrush. For maybe a good 15 minutes. But we felt like we had to do SOMETHING. Moving the animals was just out of the question, since we would have had to start that a week beforehand.

I used to have recurring nightmares of my younger days having reptiles in the basement of my parents' home and suddenly noticing a door to a room that I had completely forgotten about. And I would walk inside to find cage upon cage of dead animals that I had neglected and forgotten. I woke up on a cold sweat many a time from that one. Actually a number of years ago I had moved a Honduran milk snake into a cage along the floor and not in a rack as I usually kept them, and for some God awful twist of brain deadedness I completely forgot about it. I felt like that recurring dream was coming true when I found that animal three months later when I turned the lights on to bring everything out of brumation. Poor critter had dehydrated when the water dish had run dry and I never refilled it all that time. Man, talk about feeling horrible..... It's things like that that will just burn images into your brain forever....

Yeah, I would really like to go the rest of my life without witnessing something die because of a mistake I made...

I have to give you a lot of credit Rich, I'm not sure if I could keep going on such a large scale after a mistake like that. I made a mistake with one of the first corns I had and it almost stopped me from keeping more snakes period! Luckily, I had already found this great site you host and I talked about it here and the support helped a great deal. Now I have 6 corns and a Cali King!

Asbit said:

I have to give you a lot of credit Rich, I'm not sure if I could keep going on such a large scale after a mistake like that. I made a mistake with one of the first corns I had and it almost stopped me from keeping more snakes period! Luckily, I had already found this great site you host and I talked about it here and the support helped a great deal. Now I have 6 corns and a Cali King!

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Wait till the first time (if you go that route) that you send some snakes to someone and have the recipient crying on the phone because they showed up dead. And it was all my fault because I decided to try second day service instead of overnight. This was a good while back, mind you, but that's a pretty tough one to get over quickly...

Rich Z said:

I used to have recurring nightmares of my younger days having reptiles in the basement of my parents' home and suddenly noticing a door to a room that I had completely forgotten about. And I would walk inside to find cage upon cage of dead animals that I had neglected and forgotten. I woke up on a cold sweat many a time from that one.

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http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art47878.asp



I had similar dreams years after having given up my horses after I got married, that I would drive along the road of the pasture where I used to keep them and they would be there, neglected.

And I'm not going to even start on the anxiety dreams about my kids..........

wow

The bad things that can happen in this hobby quickly sorts out the people who REALLY love the hobby and those that dont.The stuff that can and do happen, would make any average person quit what they are doing.Thats not to mention all the time and work involved.I been there and have felt, I quit... many times,the only thing I suppose that has kept me breeding them so long is the excitement at hatching tme.I seem to always be amazed when I see the projects thats taken up to 6 years or more start to happen. I have spent many, many years trying to produce the best new morphs,sometimes not even hitting my target with 3 or more clutchs! Theres alot of thngs that can go wrong, even by the most seasoned breeders. I wish everyone the best success!

@ Rich I am planning to breed and sell, I am also planning on being willing to ship so I thank you for that tid bit and I will not use a method that will take more than same day or overnight service!!

That must have been really terrible to have gone through.

Asbit said:

@ Rich I am planning to breed and sell, I am also planning on being willing to ship so I thank you for that tid bit and I will not use a method that will take more than same day or overnight service!!

That must have been really terrible to have gone through.

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Don't ever skimp on packing and shipping. Charge enough to do it RIGHT. And also charge enough to make it worthwhile TO YOU doing it. I've seen a lot of people try to cut corners on shipping and charge so little that it cut deeply into their bottom line at the end of the year. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this sort of business practice will not keep you afloat in business very long. Shipping expenses will be a BIG part of the overhead of running your business, so make sure you allow for it in your projections.

Thank you very much for the advice any and all advice is very much appreciated!!! I know I will never end up as large of a breeder as you were but my desire is to become a very reputable name here in Saskatchewan and Canada.

Well, yesterday I actually felt RETIRED. Got my first retirement check from the state of Florida. One of these days I'll get around to filing for social security too..... Then I'll be able to afford a really SPIFFY wheelchair..... :grin01:

Congrats Rich!

Not quite retirement but I had a bit of nostalgia today as well. Cleaned out a box that had all my show stuff...lights, business cards, table clothes, etc. I knew it was in a box...just didn't know which one.

Heck, I'll probably be finding those PVC endcaps I used for water dishes around here FOREVER. I found a whole carton of the plastic sweater boxes recently. And one of these days I need to get into the shed and throw away CASES of those deli cup liners (coffee filters) that I'll NEVER use.

So if you find more of the tiny water bowls, I'd be happy to buy them!

Nanci said:

So if you find more of the tiny water bowls, I'd be happy to buy them!

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All of the water dishes I modified for use from endcap blanks have already been sold. I still have several boxes of the blanks in the shed, but never thought there was enough interest in the processed water dishes for me to make more of them.

I guard mine like they are the national treasure.