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.

Bad Economic Conditions Affecting Landscapers

The bad economic times are having a major affect, on the Landscaping company, that I have been working at for the past 16 seasons. Today I went in to work as usual, spring time is the busiest time of the year, and no-one was at the shop. Last year, 2008, we started to cut back on Saturday work, starting the first week in June and never had any Saturday work for the rest of the year.

If we do not have work in the beginning of the season, our busiest time of the season, it does not look good for this year. I have not spoken to the owner yet, that will take place on Monday.

A trip to see my daughter and grandkids.

Today I took a trip to be with my grandchildren and daughter and husband. Had to get this visit in before the season gets underway and I am working 10-12 hours per day including Saturday. It was raining which was too bad. They had put an addition on and this was the first time I had seen it. They also had hired a stone mason to come over and build some field stone walls and steps, Brett is a stone mason we use all of the time for our projects. His work is just beautiful, and they look like the old New England stone walls that all around here. Unfortunately because of the rain I did not get a picture of those walls. The picture here is from a job we worked on with Brett and you can see his work. We did the surrounding landscaping and back brick patio. My daughter, Holly, wants to find out if my company can help out in her backyard, which is the way the contractors left it after they finished the addition.

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?

Asian Long Horn Beetle devastation

Today, I went for a ride to the next town over, Shrewsbury. Wow, what a sight, it looks like a war zone. First of all this town, along with a few more surrounding towns have had an invasion of the Asian longhorned beetle. This beetle is an invasive species that came from China. It is a pest to a varitey of hardwood trees including maple, birch, and horse chestnut. The United States Department of Agirculture has quarintined the area. Which means, that no natural wood products can be moved in this area, in or out. By natural wood, I mean sticks, branches, stumps, roots, firewood. So the US forest Service, the USDA, and the Massachusetts Dept. of Agriculture has a program going on to erradicate the beetle. Chooping down trees that have been infected and chemical treatment of of host trees. This problem number one for this area. Go to http://www.uvm.edu/albeetle/ for a lot of qulity info, pics and videos about the ALB.

In the beginning of December, there was a severe "Ice Storm" that broke a lot of branches off of the trees and knocked trees down. Unfortunately this ice storm happened in the same towns as the beetle infestation. Double whamy. The residents can only stack the depris from the storm in piles on their property by the road, they can't move it because of the quarintine.

So when you drive in those towns, all you see is broken trees, piles of sticks and branches piled up on everyone's lawn and now the tree companies are cutting down the 75-100 year old trees that have been affected by the beetle. What a mess and it is going to take a long time to get it all cleaned up. The most unfortunate problem, is that now all of these properties have no more trees on them. It will take years to grow those back again.

Health Care Mess in Massachusetts

Well today, I have to vent about health care in Massachusetts. I have to go to the Doctor and I was sent a letter saying my coverage was not enough, so I would have make a co-payment of $250.00, I grumbled but accepted that and was going to pay the day of my visit. This morning my health care provider calls and says there is a mistake and it will cost me $2000.00.

Well, this mad me really mad, so I told the guy on the phone, to cancell my appointment and hung up. He called back later and told me to not hang up this time, and that he would "wave" the $2000 fee, becuase of the mistake.

In Massachusetts, we are required to have health care insurance by law. This is all thanks to our former Govenor Mitt Romney, you all know him as the guy who ran for president last year. Well he made a complete mess out of the health care system here in Massachusetts, so he could promote this as he was campaigning. Now, that it is a mess, he doesn't even live here anymore. The problem is that Health Care, in the whole country, is in a complete mess because of politicians and the Health Insurance Industry (lobbyist's) and it is only going to get worse.

Spring turf insect activity

The warm temps this week have gotten everyone thinking spring, even the turf insects. With the frost line rising due to the warm temps, the dreaded "white grub" is rising also. I have a Massachusetts Pesticide Applicators license and I am allowed by the state to apply fertilizers and pesticides to our customers properties.

We will not be putting anything down for grubs until summer, in June/July. We have been using MERIT, which is made by Bayer (yup, same people that make bayer aspirin) and it has been extremely effective in controlling white grubs on our customers lawns.

But ocassionally we will get a new customer who has had a grub problem the year before and we are called in to get ride of the grubs and to redo the turf. For that type of problem we use a product called DYLOX. This is a "quick kill" pesticide and needs to watered in after application, and this also has done a very good job of eliminating grubs. Anyone using this product in Massachusetts, needs to be warned that it is not allowed by the state to be used on any school grounds.

Soon, I will be checking our properties for any grub damage from the year before, but I am sure our customers who had the MERIT application last year, will be all set.