Trades people

This horribly expensive episode with Cy https://www.texascrimelog.com/austin/2019/08/cyan-cruz-0600-0-theft-prop-2500/,
which cost me somewhere in the range of $100k-$150k, got me to thinking about good trades people I've used in the past.

Clarence Davis used to build pole barns all over this area.  The first segment of "the big barn" cost me about $2/ftsq.  After that, he did about five or six more.  Each one, costing a little more than the previous.  The last one, Clarence sub contracted out and the guy that did the work put the wrong roof screws in the wrong places and I lived with a leaking roof for a year or so until I got someone to re-roof it.  All in all, though, Clarence was a gem.

Dwight Nance ran Texas Cedar Products out of Smithville and built mostly native cedar cabins  all over the area.  Notiably, the Lost Pines area.  I'm sure he built hundreds.  Maybe thousands.  He also built and sold local cedar furniture.  Early on, we bought a few pieces of his rustic furniture with which we were well pleased.  When it came time to build the recently burned guest house, we had Dwight do it.  He was chagrined that I insisted on slab rather than piers and HardiBoard siding rather than his cedar log slices.  We did allow him to use cedar paneling inside.  In our discussions about the cabin, Dwight recongized my name and associated it with one of his ancestors who had also migrated from Arkansas to Comanche County in the early 1890s.  From that, I followed a trail and discovered some new cousins from the DeLeon area.

I developed a need to add a cool "tomato room" in my big barn and Smith Supply pointed me to Carl Hill who had done good work for them.  Carl was good.  Honest, hard working, talented.  He later put my deceased mother's house in rentable condition.

For many years, Kirksey Propane of Lockhart gave us very good propane service.  Then, they faded and I was forced to try others.  I've just recently decided propane vendors were just too much trouble and gone all electric.

I've never before had any complaint about law enforcement in Caldwell County.  I guess I had just not much experience with them.