It's spring...the grasses are Irish Emerald green everywhere...tulips abound around town...too warm days too early have settled into a comfortable spring temperature....I love the spring even when the bird bath is frozen over each morning...there is such promise this time of year.

My knees continue to delight and impress me. How wonderful is the power to forget. 7 weeks ago today my knees were cut open, sawed, drilled, new parts put in and what followed was about 36 hours of intense pain and nausea and vomiting and me vowing NEVER to have surgery again. But today I feel great and I seem to have forgotten the nasty details. To walk without pain, without a (comforting) cane, walking heel to toe, taking normal strides....is so wonderful, I'm in love with my new knees and the doc who put them there. Ok, there is still some pain and the stiffness is more pronounced than before (surgery)...but I know that will disappear too...6 weeks....6 months...1 year. Those are the healing markers.

Work will be challenging in the next year due to big and fast changes to our industry of pest control. Government has painted us all with the same brush. However, unlike the lawn care companies, we do not spray our chemicals willy-nilly all over the lawns and parks and golf courses.

How can the government make such laws and decisions when they are ignorant of the industry? It's the squeaky wheel that gets greased and there is no squeak louder than a bunch of environmentalists who, themselves, do not understand. Do these same people realize that when the carpenter ants try to take down their houses and their children are stung by wasps living in a huge nest attached to their houses...that there will be nothing that can be done for them? I have talked to enough customers over my 20+ years on the phones here, to know this will not go well.

But it gets even better..............

One town that has passed a "complete outside chemical ban", has "solved" the problem by requiring pest control companies to buy an annual permit (cash grab) to apply pesticide to the exterior of buildings at ground level (because this is still 'sort of' allowed). In addition a permit for each job address must be purchased and displayed, similar to a building permit. The by-law dept. of this same town said "if you don't get the permit within 48 hours...just go ahead with the job...delays with paper work are expected".

Oh and while I'm bitching here..................the "complete outside chemical ban" is not extended to golf courses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What the f**k??????????????????? I see a kangaroo court in our future.