Typical Day
Moe Dirt gets up bright and early at 6:00AM. Like every morning, he's sore from yesterday's work, but a little pain and aching isn't going to stop him from getting on to today's work. That said, he does take his bottle of aspirin out of the medicine cabinet and toss it into his bag—just in case.
Moe grabs a bagel to go with his pre-brewed coffee and heads out early enough to be at Green Acres Landscaping Services by 6:30AM. After loading the extra tools he'll need for the day into his already-pretty-loaded white Ford F-250 pickup truck, he checks in with his manager for a final rundown. By 7:15AM, he's on his way to the first site with his two-man crew.
The first job is at a flashy Chevy dealership on the Boulevard. There's not much landscaping to do, exactly, but plenty of pavement that needs to be blown clear of whatever leaves and litter have arrived since they were last there a week ago.
The job's not as simple as it sounds. A big problem is that blowers, although effective for blowing debris away, also stir up a lot of dust. These are not exactly the best weather conditions for people who want to keep their cars nice and sparkly—which is most people. That means Moe and his crew have to set their industrial-strength, maximum force ultra-power blowers on the low setting.
The team eventually gets the job done, finishing around 10:15AM, though they've taken a lot of time and maybe lost a little pride in the process.
Just as Moe is wondering how this sort of work is related to actual "gardening," the dealership manager comes out to thank him for the flashy new impatiens (as in, flowers—not plants that can't wait to bloom) that replaced the fading cool-season annuals last week. They're coming along nicely and are just as bright (and tacky) as the rest of the dealership.
Those aren't the client's exact words, but Moe's happy to fill in some of the subtext.
Moe and the guys arrive at a strip mall a bit closer to town at around 10:45AM. They know they need to tread lightly here. A few weeks ago, a now-ex-employee sprayed a non-selective post-emergent herbicide to control aphids on English ivy. The aphids eventually died—because the herbicide killed the ivy they were feeding on.
Poisoning the ivy—that's a new one.
Working incredibly carefully, they get everything into proper shape and condition, including the very expensive and delicate hedges. This is the hard part, since the landscaping only looks good when they take the time to prune things properly.
The crew finishes up around 1:00PM. After parking to eat burritos at a random curb, they continue on to the sprawling Clammit residence, where a friendly but confused elderly woman always asks who they are, what they're doing there, and whether or not they've seen her cat. She always asks Moe to dance like President Hoover, a request he has never once honored.
This job doesn't pay well, but at least the job site is an interesting one.
With the job finished and Granny Clammit satisfied with the answers to today's questions, the crew leaves and gets back to the yard by 3:00PM. The three guys unload what needs to be unloaded, and with no reason to stick around they say their goodbyes and take off.
Moe gets back in the pickup truck and heads on down the road toward home. He'll take a nice long shower and take a break for a while, then it's time for his favorite activity: having friends over for dinner in his yard.
It may not be the biggest yard, but it's the best looking one in the neighborhood.