A Heck of a Deal!

I like to look at stuff for sale on kijiji... there's often good stuff. www.kijiji.ca (then choose your city)

I looked there last night and there was a post under Home & Garden for 11 rolls of woven wire fence... asking $110. So I get Shawn to call about it and yeah its still available... the guy doesn't seem to know much about it... he thinks its 4 feet tall and each roll is 50 feet. So we arrange to go there after supper last night to see it.

Its about 35 - 40 minutes away in Manotick... we drive there... and we go in a long laneway, no house or anything visible. At the end of the lane, a house is suddenly visible... Pretty house... probably 100+ years old... it has an attached garage and attached to that is a very old WOODEN silo... beautiful! Across the yard and around the corner is a very old beautiful bank barn, with very fancy arched doors on the front.

We ring the doorbell and finally the guy comes out... he's a short, tiny, very spry man, probably 55 - 65 years old and he takes off to the barn... neither Shawn or I can keep up to him! We go in the bottom of the barn and then up the stairs and he shows us the fencing... its woven page wire, as he said and there's 11 rolls of it.

I back the mini van up to the door and we start trying to load these rolls of wire... They are friggen HEAVY... I can't lift one alone... Shawn can barely... and together, they are still tricky. It becomes clear early on that not all 11 rolls will fit in the van... my goal is to get half... with much work, we got 6 rolls in last night. I ask if he'd mind if we come back this morning to get the other half... yes, that's ok with him.

I ask if he wants full payment up front... no just for the ones we're taking... so I give him $60 and off we go... the back door of the van bungeed shut.... the 4 way flashers on all the way up highway 416, 417, March road, Dunrobin road... its pretty dark when we leave his place and very dark when we get home... we decide to unload so we turn on all the yard lights and its not too bad.

We left the 6 rolls just laying on the ground... we were exhausted, sore and beat up from carrying the fencing.

This morning we went back and loaded the last 5 rolls... gave him another $50 and off we went. Was much easier in the light, for sure!! We got home and unloaded the 5 rolls... now I have 11 rolls laying in the yard... only paid $110!! Its brand new, had been stored inside... awesome :)

Its still unclear how long each roll is... the guy said 50 feet, but wasnt sure... some of the rolls still had tags on that said they were 20 rod... when you look up 20 rod, it says that 20 rod = 330 feet... I'm suspicious that its not 330 feet per roll... but even at 50 feet per roll we got a very good deal. (I had looked up prices at TSC online before we went.)

We at least have 550 feet of fencing.... maybe dramatically more if the rolls are actually 20 rod.

I think its also not 4 feet tall.... but slightly taller... my guess is 4.5 feet tall, but I'll have to measure.

We thought we got a great deal... he seemed happy it was going away.... they have sold the place and are moving out. They have more fencing for sale... that's installed and needs to be disassembled, but he wants $1200 - $1500 for that, plus you have to remove it... and that just seems unreasonably high and a crap load of work!!

Although, I half expect he'll come down in price on that too... he originally was advertising this 11 rolls of fencing ... his original price was $500 and then he dropped it to $110. So you never know :)

Now we just have to finish the stone dust in the machine shed, build doors, get the machinery moved over... then the fencing can get put in the white building to keep it out of the weather until we're ready to start putting some up.

We also need to finalize our plan of where the fencing should go... there's some ongoing debate about that ;)