Day 2 of the cleanup

Usually, I have a guy named Rich, work with me everyday, but today Rob, needed him to work on the other crew, who is cleaning up sand in the parking lot of a Commercial Property in Natick, Massachusetts. This is alright, because most of the guys we have are interchangeable. We are fortunate to have had the same crew members working at the company for the last 4-5 seasons, and they have all been trained in the same way.
This is a big blessing that we do not have to be training new people every year.

We came back to the property in the picture and continued with the clean up, this time we worked in the back yard. There were 6 deer in the back yard and we went to get a close up look at them. They were not afraid of us in anyway, in fact as we left to return to work they started to follow us. We did the same work out back cleaning off the lawn area, raking out he beds and edgeing them. We also have to rake out the fish pond every time we work there. The leaves collect, in the pond, which creates algae, which has an oder and the pond is not clear. A pair of Mallard ducks is enjoying it this early spring. Usually one of the guys has to put on "hip wadder boots" and climb into the pond to fake out the middle of the pond, but we could not locate the "wadders" this time.

Wellesley Hills, Spring Clean up

Today, we went to another property to do a "spring cleanup", This time the home is located in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts. This is another beautiful, older property and landscape, complete with waterfall and fish pond in the back yard.

The owner has been rehabbing the home and property for the last 4 years. We did a lot of renovation to the property, as can bee seen in the picture of the "Rose Garden". We relandscaped almost the entire yard two years ago.

This is a large cleanup and it will take me and the two guys with me 2 days to complete. We will use backpacks to blow off the debris on the lawn area, that comes down during the winter months, rake out the mulched beds, trim away and broken limbs on the ornamental bushes and trees and edge the same beds. We are getting it ready to be mulched at a later time, about 2-3 weeks from now.

The owner had wanted us to come over early, because the town plows had taken a large chunk of her front lawn away during the winter. We raked it up and swept up the stuff out in the raod and will come back in a few weeks when things have warmed up a bit to put down some loam and to re-seed that area.

Spring Cleanup's begin.

I went with the two guy's who work with me to do a "Spring Cleanup" at a house in Needham, Massachusetts. This is one of Rob's first customers, so we pay, special attention to this property. I love working on these "old landscapes", they have so much character.

She had asked us to come over to work on her property early, because she wanted the sand, that was put down on her driveway, during the snowy winter months cleanup up, from her driveway. she is fussy about things. We also took down the "Deer Fence" that we put up in the fall around her Rhody's, Holly Bushes, Yews and what ever ornamental's the deer just love to eat and destroy during the winter. Unfortunately the fence had fallen over in one area and the deer got in and devoured some bushes, they will come back in time, with some TLC.

There are some really large trees out in her back yard. These are referred to as "Wolf Trees", due to them being planted out in the open backyard, with plenty of room to grow, and with plenty of sun. These trees have branches, that as large as most trees main trunk. Just beautiful to look at. Her property, was once part of a large property that was owned by a very wealthy business man, William Baker, who manufactured sewing machine's in Boston. He was quite a character, and on her property there is the remains of an old foundation that used to be a large barn that held exotic animals.

My Winter Story

During the past 4 winters, I decided I would not plow anymore. Too cold, in the middle of the night, no restaurants or stores are open to get something warm to eat, all by your self, hard to see driveways at night(most people forget to turn the lights on), no markers to see where the driveway is etc.

So, because I had all this time on my hands, I read a lot of books on self improvement and did a lot of work on me. I also, became very interested in starting my own home business, hey, I had the winter off, and needed additional income, to replace what I used to make plowing. So I went online, looking for a home based business to run last year during the winter.

You know how a lot of people are always dieting, drinking energy drinks like Red Bull and a lot of people take vitamins are interested in natural health these days. Well, I found this company that sells cool versions of these products, that people really like. they have some cookies, that dieters love to eat to manage their weight, an energy drink about 1/3 the cost of Red Bull, but gives a better buzz and lots of vitamins and healthy things people really like and buy from them all the time.

So, I found out I need about 150 people using these products, to more than, replace my plowing income. So I started this winter learning how to get those users. Hey, I learned to be a landscaper, a parent, how to use a computer and do email so I new I could learn how to get these users.

So I got thinking, "whats going to easier" going back to plowing on cold winter nights or learning a system to get 150 people using these products.

What do you think?