With this title, this could probably be one heck of a long series. Just the same, as I sit mending from my medical misadventures of recent vintage, “recollection” – history – is in the air. It just is what it is and I am a passenger on this “big blue ball”.

Play this here tune whilst you read. 😉

(I invite you to click on the pictures, most of which enlarge, sometimes dramatically. But it will kill the music if you do, ha ha. I am a diabolical DJ. Read first, then enlarge, that’s my advice.)

The accidental impact of my career in landscaping, which began as a diverting and hard-worked but somehow satisfying mode of making a living in 1970, has become much more than that, 45 years later. Through all of the years of partial regret at actually “working for a living”, the trade for me bloomed at various times into blossoms I would never have recognized at the onset. For example, who knew I would eventually design – and install – projects which would actually win awards? There were even a few which won awards I was not even aware of until much later. The Best and Worst   The Best: Standing with a client and collecting the final check, listening to something like this is the best part: “Wow, Steve. I know it would be pretty but I never expected anything like this!” There are unfortunately, no pictures for this sort of thrill. Those are in our hearts and minds. 😉

Second Best:  Standing with my foreman after the finishing touches are placed. The Worst: (in picture form) Here, in no set order, are those projects I am proudest of………….. LOL, OK. I’m proud of my daughter. She was a major project that worked out well enough. Now teaching Yoga in San Diego. 😉 Where was I?

Oh yeah………..A project we worried into existence over a few years was at my Reno Business partner Bill and Donna Hermant’s home. It began with us working over a frightfully bare and dusty failure of a landscape and was undoubtedly part of the appeal to Bill at the idea of having himself a partner in the landscaping business.   The very first thing we did was to install his wife’s most precious desire – a waterfall or two and a creek.   Having finished that – in between projects elsewhere, we worried his house into a fairly splendid landscape – one he was delighted to host parties at for his and my own crews. Here are pictures “down the road a piece” in terms of time. The transition from dusty, bare and foreboding to lush, green and welcoming is one of the rewards of the landscape building trade. Needless to say, the clients who receive all this excellent and totally focused attention usually feel pretty darn good about themselves after we leave. This project was a 10 acre extravaganza we did for a home builder/developer who hand-picked his landscaper – me – and who gave “Carte Blanche” to design and install. LOL, those circumstances alone were enough to feel good about, but the artistic and engineering problems so rife with this project – (all water is from a well with a limited amount to be used for the landscape) – and the drainage issues which nearly wiped us out in mid-project (thanks to a careless neighbor) – made for some very serious concentration all the way through the 6 months we worked there. From this……. To this……. From this………. To this: What began as a puzzle…………… Sure enough worked out pretty well………… Bottom line on both cases – the clients were quite pleased. The very bottom line?  I was pleased as well. Later on, we’ll move on to some other faves………..