Reasonable questions... I'll answer best I can.
I was in a conference room, above and to the side of what looked like a wharehouse/manuf type facility, and the walk to the conference room was overlooking the floor of the warehouse. It definitely appeared to be a place where they were working on hardwoods and shipping them etc...though there was no visible woodworking going on as far as I could see.... mostly I would classify what we saw as a packaging and shipping facility, though it seemed obvious that rooms attached to it were where the woodworking/finishing happened. It was what I would describe as active, but not a madhouse busy. I have *heard* from someone that they have since moved to a different facility. Obviously I cannot comment on that because I haven't seen the new place, or even know if it exists.
It was obvious to me that things on the farms were happening, but certainly not in the way that I would have expected. Wind blown trees where tied up straight, though there was wind before we got there so some trees had blown over. The grass around the tree was trimmed so we could physically get to the trees, I would estimate this took place a week or so before our arrival.
One expectation I had was that the trees would be regularly and properly trimmed. This has not happened. I would expect that for the early years of a tree's life, it would be tended to on regular intervals, say ...every 3 mo... I would have liked someone to at least walk past the trees with trimmers every 6 mo.... such did not appear to be the case. I do not know if this was Steve's problem directly, or the tree farm managers issue (lazyness?) though ultimately it is Steve's problem. I was surprised that Steve didn't peruse the trees before we got there... he knew what was at stake when we went down there, and he knew we'd be reporting back to the hub. As far as I can tell, he hadn't personally visited the farms in a long time.
Is TATF viable. I don't know. I'm not investing any more money with them. They know that. I could have been a great advocate for them, but they haven't bothered listening to me because Steve is "doing his best" and we should just trust that it is good enough. In business, and on the internet, this doesn't cut it. I have NO idea if TATF has the capitol to keep the business afloat... I have no idea if and when trees are gonna get thinned if anyone will get any money. I do not suspect theft will be an issue, nor do I see disease being a problem either.
I have not bothered to contact TATF, they will not give out any relevant information... so why bother?
At the end of the day, I get what I get out of this. I don't have a big enough investment to try to go after Steve legally. And, I may not even bother trying even if someone offered that service to me. Other people with bigger stakes can try to get more information... I'm peanuts to TATF... :(
-Mattyo
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