Clean up of the, Babson College, Presidents Residence

Today I went with 3 other guys to do a spring cleanup at the home of the President of Babson College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts. This is a very nice, older property, with a great landscape.

This is a large property with a lot of mulched beds that have to be raked out, the flowers cut back, and the beds edged, before we can mulch. We have to also make sure that we use backpacks and clean off the lawn area. We have to do an excellent job here, as Babson has many catered events at this home. So we always have to do our best work here.

This will take all four of us, working until 5:30 pm today to clean it up, and there will be another crew, spending another day, just mulching the property. Good thing I have my daily, afternoon CRAVE energy drink for this one.

Plow damage repair

Rich is off to get a couple yards of loam, today, so we can go around and repair the snow plow damage from last winter, on a few of the properties, that we have cleaned up. This is a yearly ritual, where we first rake out the damaged area, then put down some new loam and then seed the area. We then use the bake of a spring rake to "plant" the seed in the loam before we roll it, with a push roller.

The first property is in Needham, where a retired Doctor and his wife live. He had quite a bit of snowplow damage on his front lawn. He had also removed an old wooden deck, that was surrounding a Red Maple Tree, out in the backyard. This used up all of the loam we had brought with us so we had to go to a local nursery and get 2 more yards of loam. I love going to Lovell's Nursery in Medfield, Massachusetts, the guys that work there, are all great guys and very helpful.

Next, we were off to the Olin College President's house, to repair the damage done to both sides of the driveway. This took about 2 yards of loam to reapir.

Next we went to a hose in Wellesley that had not been cleaned up yet and it was decided by Rob, (the boss), to skip it until it had been cleaned up. This propperty has a circular driveway made of crushed stone and the stone was all over the yard and it would have taken to long to cleanup. It was our mission to just be putting down loam and seed.

We finished up the day at the very first we cleaned up this spring. the property is in Needham, Massachusets. This took another 2 yards of loam to repair. We finished up around 6:30 PM.

During this week I had started to take a "CRAVE" energy drink, at noontime. Ususally I get a bit tired during the afternoon, but I can't have a coffee, after 10 AM or I will not get a good night's sleep. I market this energy drink and it is great, you just add it to 20 ounces of bottled water, shake it up, drink it and you are good to go for 6-7 hours. No "jitters or crash" like with coffee or the other energy drinks on the market. I gave one to Rich and he was going strong after 12 hours of hard work.

Newton, Needham and Wellesley Cleanups

We are going to 3 smaller properties in different towns today to do spring cleanups.

The first property is in Newton, Massachusetts. I did the "bluestone" patio (see pic) and we also landscaped the back hill and sodded the small area in front of the patio last year. We were done with the cleanup here by noontime.

Next was a very small property in Needham, and the owner has decided to cut back on our services this year due to the economy and we will not be mulching her yard this year.

After that we went to a property in Wellesley that I had never been to before. The woman who owns the property is an editor of the Wellesley Weston, Magazine, that we advertise our landscaping service's in. Just a straight cleanup here, we will be back to mulch in a few weeks.

Back to the Olin President's House

Today, just two guy's, came to help me finish up the cleanup at the President's house in Needham. We went through all of the mulched beds, hand raking the winter debris out, clipping any dead branches on the ornamental bushes.

People get carried away with pruning this time of year and that is a major mistake. It is too early in the growing season to determine what needs to be trimmed. Some leaves, on the Rhododendron's turn brown over the winter and should not be pruned at all. The spring growth will push these brown leaves off in a few month's. So it is best to just prune branches that have been broken from the weight of the snow and leave all pruning until this years growth spurt has ended, usually in July and August.

I had Rich, cut down a Dogwood tree, in the perennial garden, that had been dying the past few seasons. In the same perennial bed, after we cleaned it out we put down some "organic lobster manure" to improve the soil and growing conditions. Before we left we edged all of the beds.

Due to the poor economy my landscape compnay will not be mowing the lawn here this year, but we will mulch all of the beds, fertilize the bushes, tree's and lawn area along with planting annuals and monthly weeding of the flower beds.

Rainy Monday

The rain is due to come later today and when it does that will be it for the day as the storm will last overnight.

We went over to the President of Olin College's house, in Needham, Massachusetts, to do a spring cleanup. The wife of the President, always greets us with coffee from Dunkin Donuts and homemade muffins. This makes our day and we just work that much harder for her. It's a "win-win" for us both.

There were 3 other guys with me and we only had time to use back packs to blow off the lawn, and rake out a couple of beds, before the rain came. We all went home around noon time. The cool rainy weather had my joints aching and my muscles sore so I was happy to go home and put some SUNJING on it.

Going home early used to bother me, but it does not anymore, because I can now go home and work on the home based business, that I started during the winter months. I market health and nutritional products and SUNJING is one of them. About 5 minutes after applying it to my knees and leg muscles the aching and soreness is no longer noticed. I love that stuff.