Again... wow...

that was 3 incredibly hard days of patio building. Fantastic work Hedi and Elton. It looks fabulous and the homeowner is ecstatic! clapclapclapclap!

Bravo! Hedi, Elton and Dad... Bravo...!

This patio in Cranston we are working on is among the finest, if not the finest we have installed. There is a very strict pattern here, made to look random... get it? Very hard to get it just right. They did! This still has to have the polymeric sand tamped in, so it will look even better in the next day or two. What a feature! Terrific job you three!

Hedi went home this weekend, so...

... I thought I would give her fans something to see back in S.A.

(if you scroll to the bottom of this post, you will be rewarded)

...I'm not looking...

...still not looking...

...ouch, the hand...

...cowgirl up...

...still not looking...

...hahaha, made you look... ...at a really cute bunny.

Lest we forget...

For the benefit of our current and future clients, I have included the following pictures. One picture shows Dave in a veritable pile of crap. Future customers, please expect this and probably more mess and mud. The benefit we had on this project is it was still frozen. No Mud (until later). Current customers, you can empathize. The second (after) picture is the beautiful skin of a well planned, built and finished landscape.

FInished Stairs and Flower Bed...

Very well done team! This looks great! We still have to put the little patio at the top, that comes when we put the main patios in.

Built in BBQ, so far...

The surround for the BBQ insert is almost complete as well. There is an opening for the BBQ as well as a fridge. There will be a custom stone counter installed to top it all off.

And here is what it will look like

Still single...

c'mon ladies!!!! sheesh, he is a really nice guy!!!!

Half circle stairs...

... Here is a really cool set of entry stairs under construction. It will be 4 steps up and a landing when it is done.

We start by laying a huge sheet of geo-texile material under the overall pad, then at every stair level there is geo-grid that knits the entire stair together. It created the equivalent strength of a solid poured concrete block. every part of the stairs are tied together with these grid materials.

The black sheet in the last picture is waterproofing membrane because we are bringing up the stairs beyond the stucco. We would never pack earth against any house without waterproofing it first.

23% of our season gone... a monologue/rant.

We are officially 6 weeks behind. From April 15 to October 15 is a pretty typical landscaping season, with about 15 days of rain or snow stopping us. We have had 30 days of rain or snow already this year that has stopped us. This is CRAZY.

26 weeks is what we get per season and we have lost 6 weeks already. That is 23% of our season. That is 23% of our revenues. That means we would have to work steady completing projects until December 1st to make up the time. Last year we went until Nov 1st and then it froze solid. Lost time in this business is just that, lost time. It does not matter how much harder we work, because we already work incredibly hard. There is not much more to give.

23% of our season gone, and we are only in the middle of July. That means we have only worked about half the amount of time we should have up till now. This means, to stay at 23% lost time for the season, we would have to work EVERY day available until Oct 15th. Not one more weather delay day. We work more than other firms due to weather too. Imagine the entire outdoor construction industry in Calgary missing half it's revenues already this year... yikes.

Happy thoughts, sunny thoughts...

very rare to see one in the wild...

... in the southeast Calgary village of Douglasglen, there is an oasis not far from the never ending flows of the mighty deerfoot, and just west of this asphalt jungle lives an animal unlike any urban creature seen in these parts.It is a cat.

a big cat. a strong cat... a yellow cat.

It has arms as strong as steel and can lift whole trees as high as the sky.

It has tracks instead of feet and detachable work tools instead of paws.

It can see at night, can travel incredibly fast over any terrain and can turn in an instant.

Oh my goodness RUN it's right behind you!.. never... NEVER... get in this cats way...

This cat has a brand, maybe it's a tame cat... what... does ... it ... say? oh... Cat is a '257b2'... i looked it up, this cat comes from the Finning ranches of northeast Calgary, but now resides in the jungles south of the Anderson Road great divide.

This cat also has a name, the fine South Calgary landscape ranchers at LeeDavid have tamed this beast and named him.... Felix

Who reads all the paper anyway?

huh, you'd think someone would have told us this ran in the paper last year.

Again, nice to see.

The gas man cometh...

...so we have to wait a day for the inspection. Meanwhile we got the irrigation installed and the first lift of gravel moved into the backyard.

Here is the project now...

... and what it will be in a few short days.

The best days...

...are when we finish a project! This was a gooder! 8 days and done. Complete backyard renovation. Didn't replace the deck but it didn't need it. Great job team! The homeowner is very pleased. Off to Cranston we go for the next 3 weeks.

good grief...

Productivity tool...

pro·duc·tive
Pronunciation: \prə-ˈdək-tiv, prō-\
Function: adjective
Date: 1612
1: having the quality or power of producing especially in abundance
2: effective in bringing about
3 a: yielding results, benefits, or profits b: yielding or devoted to the satisfaction of wants or the creation of utilities

The work tools we purchase have one purpose. To increase our productivity.

Our new tool is a Dump box insert for our Crew truck. This will allow us to provide more productive hauls to the dump, and picking up small quantities of earth material. This also helps us be more responsive for our existing clients service needs. (this also has a wireless remote, cool.)





Awesome! (This post has been brought to you by... obviously... BRI-MAR)

I Googled LeeDavid Landscapes and this came up...

http://www.makeawish.ca/wish_stories/news/read/949

I didn't know it was on the Make a Wish Canada page until now.
Something else we are very proud of.

We are honored...

...to have been selected to be the cover story for the July '08 Allan Block contractor newsletter showcasing our '08 Bel-Aire Project. This newsletter is published 4 times a year and is distributed all over North America. We were informed we were being considered back in May, and today the issue has been released on the Allan Block website, and is currently in print to be ready for distribution in a couple of weeks.

Here is the link to the PDF as well as the Residential Contractor section of the Allan Block website that features the newsletter.

We were told we were selected because of our creative use of Allan Block walls, combined with the Allan Block Courtyard collection and how we are able to incorporate this system into our total landscape design. We have used this system in the Calgary Neighborhoods of:

Discovery Ridge

Maple Ridge

Canyon Meadows

and of course Bel-Aire.

Not surprisingly, these are some of our favorite projects.

Thank you to Daryl at CCI Industries, Our local Allan Block dealer/manufacturer for nominating us and thank you to Danelle down at Allan Block Headquarters in Minnesota for putting together such a nice write up!

The things we do that no one ever sees...

Interesting picture. could be mistaken for a crime scene.

What makes this little under deck project ok for Hedi is that we did such a good job of keeping the underside of the deck tidy and dry. She spends quite a bit of time under decks routing lighting wires and irrigation lines.

Back to Bel Aire, before and today - 1 month later.

Wow... click the picture for a larger version.