Things to be thankful for
Things to be thankful for
What a year we have had. We continue to be thankful for the wonderful people we meet while operating Naturescape, LLC. Throughout the years we meet and greet many great people who become friends. Landscaping is a difficult business. Without going through our many challenges I choose to focus on the things to be thankful for.
I started this business by myself almost 30 years ago but it wouldn’t be the success it is today without Jeff in the company with me. He brings a work ethic that is unbeatable. He solves problems in creative ways and builds beautiful walkways and walls that are not only appealing but will control water problems we don’t even think about.
Last year he jumped in and out of trucks one too many times that caused him a problem with Planter facetious. He has been fighting it for a long time going so far as to taping his foot on a regular basis. He tried a $1/day professional tape until he discovered Duct tape to actually work better. His motto has always been “If you can’t Duct it, chuck it.” Haha Well, we certainly can’t throw out his foot!
This summer we had a scare that sent him to the hospital for a stent implant. We were just barely getting over that and he was in a hit and run accident that broke 6 ribs in his back, 8 bones in his foot and broke his ankle. We feel lucky he survived and was not hurt more, however, going through this has made our lives even more complicated. We had been feeling short staffed all season and this seemed to really complicate things. We have many amazing friends and neighbors as well as the employees to be thankful for.
Ben, Brandon, and Jose have been with us for 10 and 8 years respectively now. They picked up the slack and kept things going well. We had some new hires that were great as well. Josh and Cindy were just great. I tried to keep up but I know there are people who may feel that my response time was not as well as it should be. What can I say? Next year we will hire some more help.
As you know that’s something we do on a normal basis but we don’t take hiring lightly. The reason we haven’t done a lot lately is we want to be able to be there with each new person to guide them and make sure they are on the right track. We’ve spent a lot of time on each new employee and we don’t want to send them out without being properly trained.
We treat our employees and customers alike the way we would want to be treated. Besides letting them know how grateful we are for them on a regular basis they get paid sick days, holidays and vacation days. Over the winter when it’s really cold they get laid off but they come back rejuvenated and ready to earn some money. At Thanksgiving, we give them gift cards and at Christmas they get bonuses. It lets them know in a way they can really appreciate how much we are thankful for them.
Regarding Jeff’s recovery, he’s doing really well. It looks like he’s going to make a complete recovery with his foot. I was concerned about how he was going to be getting along on crutches with broken ribs in his back. We prayed for him about that and thankfully his back hardly bothered him. His Planter facetious was a huge problem in his life. As he was looking at his broken foot and the surgeon was talking about a repair, Jeff asked about the planter facetious. The surgeon said he wouldn’t have a problem with that. Yeah! There’s another thing to be thankful for! I guess that was one way of staying off his foot!
We hope you and your loved ones all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!