Redoing the planters (the easy way)

Do any of my kids remember Richard, the guy that hung around our house from time to time? Not OUR Richard but one that had a few mental problems and I think at one time was living in Roland Spongberg's storage facility on Studebaker. Well, we were out geocaching a few days ago and a guy on a bicycle came riding up to us and said, "What are you doing?" We thought he might be a security guard or something but he evidently thought we were landlords or property managers looking over the landscaping around this building. After all, we were looking into and around the bushes with a paper in our hand. He then offered to do work for us at $15 an hour. Did we have something he could do? We admired his willingness to go looking for work but wondered a little when he gave us his card which was a rectangle of colored construction paper with his name and phone number penciled on it. We said we'd call if we had anything.

Well, a couple of days ago, Carolyn decides it might be nice to have someone besides her replant the citrus trees we've had in barrel halves and big pots. It seemed time to find them permanent homes. With my back, I was out of the question (not to be repotted but to do the repotting.) She decided to call up our bicycle riding friend Mike. Turns out he was busy with another job but could be here Tuesday morning. That's when we found out just how much he was like Richard of long ago.

Mike talked and talked and talked. He shared information about his former marriages (he's had two), his mental state (he's bipolar) and why he likes to work alone (it's too long a story to even start).

But he is a good worker. I'll say that for him. And he has apparently done a fair number of landscaping jobs so he know how to mix soil amendments for transplanting. He wouldn't let us just use the old dirt from the hole he dug up. He was also concerned about placement and visual effect. And he made sure that we knew about other things around the yard that he could do for us such as stack the wooden shakes we got from our neighbor and straighten up the fence boards we have in the back of the house.

By the end of the day he had the three citrus trees transplanted and the barrels, half full of new dirt (mixed for replanting) relocated where Carolyn had suggested. He only got a little mad that she didn't mark the locations clearly and he had to move the barrels THREE times.

He's called two times since then to remind us that he can still help us with more work around the yard. He may be our new best friend.