Solo - Odds and Ends Work

It is the beginning of the month so it is time for me to do some "odds and ends" solo work. These are all relatively small projects that customers call and request help with. The first job I did, was to go over to a property in Framingham and re-trim the bushes because the customer wanted more of his bushes trimmed away that had been done earlier.

Next, I went to a property in Holliston to weed the beds, weed whack the front walk and back patio. I then had to spray "round up" on the patio and walkway to hopefully take care of the weeds for this year. the customer is also hoping that it is the last time we have to come over and weed his beds. We are getting close to the end of the season, in fact it looks like we are going to have an early fall. The leaves on the trees are already turning yellowish and appear to be life less.

Next, I went to a property in Sherborn to finish trimming one bush along the side of the house. We had encountered a very large hornets nest and Guillerme got stung, when we were there working on the property earlier in the season. Even after we had sprayed the nest and physically removed it, the very unhappy returning bees were not happy to find there home gone.

I ended up both Tuesday and Wednesday at a property in Wellesley, to finish up what had been requested by the owner earlier in the season. He also requested that I come over after 10 AM so as not to disturb the guys playing tennis on the courts in the back yard. The 2 pictures above, are of the gardens at the back of the house and around the indoor pool. the courts are behind the gardens.

I had to "tip back" the white pines that grow in a row, along the tennis court fence, on one side, and then remove the top spire that had some evidence of the "Pine borer" in it. I then
"up-limbed" the trees that are growing along the fence, in back of the courts. The tree branches are growing over the courts and needed to be cut back.

As I was working the owner came home and added some more work to my project list so I will not finish today and will have to return next week. More weed whacking, hand weeding and spraying Round up in those areas. Oh well back next week with some of the guys for some help.

Clean up and Mulch for a Wedding Reception

We had to go over to this home in Dover Massachusetts because one of the son's is getting married and the property needed to be cleaned up for the wedding reception that is going to be held there. the work was a lot more than Rob anticipated for some reason. He thought it could all be weeded, re-edged and mulched all in one day with a 3 man crew. I explained to Rob, that it was a 2 day job for a 3 man crew and that it was going to be about 20 yards of mulch.

It is a beautiful property, that is kinda like a peninsula and is surrounded by the infamous Charles River. (you all remember that song) It is large about 6 acres and it has some large beds that needed to be weeded before we could start mulching.

Here again, we had to dead head flowers, cut off the flower shoots on the hosta's and remove yellow leaves from the Lilly's. Guillerme and I worked on just weeding from 8 AM to 5:15 PM. Rich who came with us went and got some mulch after lunch and mulched some of the beds for the afternoon by himself. We are using a brown pine mulch and it will look very nice around all of the flowers and shrubs when we are done on Tuesday. I will have to get some better pictures to show the size of the property. I will do another post next week when we have finished this up.

What a wicked "web"

Fabio, Guillerme and I went to this home in Wellesley to continue weeding and fluffing up properties. We all were working on the rock garden in the front of the house and I noticed this beautiful, very symmetrical spiders web. I had to hide under one bush to take the picture because the sun was shinning in the wrong direction to get a head on shot.

Another sign that fall is quickly coming, was the apple tree's out back had nice red Macintosh apples ready to pick and eat. I think the guys had an apple each time they passed the tree. They left quite a few on the ground for the deer that frequent the back yard. If the guys did not eat them they would have gone to waste and that would have been a shame.

Some of the bushes that had been planted early in the spring had died and rob went to Lovell's nursery to get replacements. It appears that the irrigation system has been shut off for some reason. the owner was not home so we did not have access to the control panel for the irrigation system to check out what was going on. We finished up at 5 PM and headed back to the shop.

Fluffing up a few properties

Guillerme and I started to work on this property yesterday, but we were only there for a few hours. Today I have Guillerme and Fabio to help me out. Fabio is another guy who is turning out to be a very good "detail" worker, again they are hard to find.

As we were about 2 hours into the job of wedding and fluffing up the beds, the mowing crew showed up and mowed the property. They also mow 5 other properties that are off campus but used by Babson higher ups.

Here as in the other properties we are starting the process of dead heading the flowers and removing the yellow leaves, especially from the Lilly's and Iris's. Some of the annuals here needed to be completely removed, especially from the planters.

The Presidents wife wanted new Chrysanthemums, planted for some upcoming gatherings, that are going to be held at the property. This part of the project was handed over to Rob, who seems to be the pot planter this season.

Late Season Trim Job

The season is starting to wind down. The leaves on the Chestnut Trees are curling up, the Swamp Maples are starting to turn red and orange. I think we are in for a early fall this season.

We went to this property to trim the bushes and weed and make it look nice. The property had nothing done to it since the beginning of the season when it was cleaned up and mulched.

Guillerme helped me out on this and he is turning into a very good "detail" worker which is hard to find.

As we went along doing our work, we started the process of dead heading all of the flower blooms and removing the yellow branches from the flowers. The season is coming to an end and the flowers and tress are telling us that. Most everything, lawns, bushes, trees and flowers are starting to look lifeless and a bit yellow.

We finished this up around 2:30 PM and then headed over to to the same type of work at the property used by the President of Babson College

Mowing before storm

A hurricane named Danny is predicted to come close enough to Massachusetts that we will be experiencing heavy rain on Saturday and Sunday.
So Rob, has decided that he wants a second mowing crew to go out and finish up all of the mowing for the week by Friday.

I have not gone on a mowing route in many many years and it was like being in a time warp all day.
I used this day to train Guillerme on using both of the mowing machines we had with us. A walk behind hydro 36 inch mower and a hydro 52 inch stand on mower. Fabio, who was also with us was already familiar with both machines.

It ended up being a fun day, where I could share stories with the guys about how it was when I first started and all of the mowing machines were walk behind and were belt driven. We were finished around 4:40 and went back to the shop and the guys washed the trucks and mowers
before the rain came in.

The picture above is of what the sky looked like at 4:00 pm from the last house we mowed.

Getting Babson ready for the start of the year

We went to Babson College today to continue with the weeding of area's that had been neglected during the year so the college would look its best when the fall semester begins this weekend.

Guillerme, Fabio, Ceillo, Rob and I went from building to building weeding and cleaning up the areas close to the buildings and parking lot areas.

Some of the kids had already arrived and you could feel the buzz starting to grow on campus. It is fun being here although it is very warm and humid this week.

The picture is of the entrance with the "mums" that were planted last year. The nurseries and store's seem to get the mums in earlier and earlier every year. We remove annuals that were planted in the spring and can not tolerate the colder temperature that will be arriving soon and plant mums, which are hardier.

Back from my Vacation

I am back from a week off, which I needed. I have found that a week off during the summer refreshes my attitude, work and gets me ready for the colder part of the season. We use a large part of our energy doing our work and when it gets colder our bodies start to use more and more of that energy. So this was a very beneficial break for me.

It is hard for me to come up with current pic's to add to the post as the season is winding down and most of the flowers are no longer in full bloom and are rather dull looking.

When I came back I had to finish the feritlizer route, which Guillerme and I worked on before I left. I finished up the 4 properties on the route and then went to Babson College to meet up with Rob and the guys. The had spent the entire week while I was gone, getting the college ready for the fall semester.

Vacation.....................

This week I am on a much needed vacation. The warm summer season is almost over and the cooler fall and winter season are on the way. I just needed to recharge the old batteries. I will be back next week.

Pete

Trimming the Olin college home

We went to the home that is used by the President of Olin College today to trim and weed the property because there was going to be a party on Monday. I had Fabio and Guillerme with me.

Before we even started the guy who is in charge of the Olin College campus showed up to mow the lawn. So we had to have a small break to have a chat with him. Then he was off to mow while we started to weed the beds.

I enjoy coming to this property as well, because the lady of the house loves her flower gardens. She enjoys having us come over and always brings us coffee and homemade blueberry muffins for our 10AM break. she just came back from Paris and had a lot to tell us about her trip and even brought us out some books on Notre Dam and the Louve, great pictures and great stories.

We finished up just about 5 pm, and had to work a little bit harder and faster at the end because we knew we had to be done by the end of the day.