Fast Start

Looks like another landscape business in our area is going to go under. One of our hard goods suppliers is failing. It always saddens me when our business associates experience financial difficulties and I am thankful to still have my head above water after all these years.

This weekend I did something I would not have expected, purchased a truck sight unseen. It is a 2003, 10 cylinder Ford extended cab with a 8' dump, fold down sides, 1 ton dually. We will tear out the rear seat and install a tool crib. The truck is a railroad vehicle with 185,000 miles that part worries me. The price however was great $ 12,500.00, a bargain for a workhorse like that. We purchased it from Dave Imel Motors in Bluffton, IN where we have bought most of our trucks. I was not even looking for a truck but the recent DOT inspections reminded how beat up our fleet is, so I called Dave.

Of course he had the perfect truck (I hope) and he was getting ready to paint it white with a black bed while I prefer all white, so I only had about an hour to discuss it with Bruce and we committed in fifteen minutes. We will pick it up in a couple of days having already purchased some of the tools that will be required to outfit it properly.

Here it is only the end of the first week of April and many of the employees are already on their 6Th week of work due to the unseasonably warm weather, maybe we are on our way to a record year. We have a dozen employees currently, near our normal maximum but who knows perhaps we will set record for full time staff this year as well.

All this means Bruce and I are running like crazy and working a cool 70 hours per week still falling behind, but we persevere. An interesting but unexpected turn of events.