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Re: [nafex] Plant shipping costs



John:
    Why don't you just use the good old US Mail.  I've never had the US mail 
"lose" a package, deliver it to a vacant house, leave it outdoors exposed to 
weather  in hurricane season, deliver it to neighbors who may or may not 
decide to keep it for themselves, deliver it to places I've long since ceased 
to live at, etc., etc., etc.  We have pretty good drivers where we are now, 
though no responsible parent would let his/her children outdoors at 5 p.m. or 
so when they come bombing through the area.  Mostly they deliver to the right 
people, though things do get left outdoors from time to time and it is hit or 
miss whether they bother to get the "required"signature.  FedEx is worse 
because they don't want to come out to rural addresses--they only want the 
cream of closely packed urban deliveries.  They will claim that the road was 
impassible on days when three or four vehicles use it, including UPS.  From 
the customer's point of view, I would like my mail delivered to my post 
office box where I can pick it up when I am around and it will be under cover 
otherwise, and air conditioned in warm weather, a very important 
consideration if one is expecting live plant material.  (Fortunately, the 
road is to the east of our buildings, so generally materials are in the shade 
if delivered by UPS--they come in the afternoon and they happen to come when 
we are not away for a few days.  

We have been shipping permaculture books and publicatons via US mail since 
1982, and shipping them all over the world.  We have never had a case where 
the person didn't get the mail, though in some cases it had been slow.  
(Mostly foreign, via surface, which would not be use for live plants, 
obviously.)  When we lived in Canada, we got a mail box in Niagra Falls 
because it was quicker to drive to the USA once a week than to wait for the 
Canadian mail, which is slower than many "Third World" countries I've 
visited.  But the US Mail is OK--way better than any alternatives in my view.

Dan Hemenway
For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since 
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses, 
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and annual correspondence 
courses via email.  Join our current online course, in progress. Copyright, 
2000, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL 32192 USA  Internships. 
BarkingFrogsPC@aol.com 
 http://barkingfrogspc.tripod.com/frames.html
or
http://www.permaculture.net/~EPTA/Hemenway.htm
We don't have time to rush.

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