Good Friday, Fresh Friday

The flowers that Sandy sent to me for my birthday came from a place like a direct from growers, & she ordered them on-line. She said if they weren't perfect to call the place, and since the yellow alstroemeria arrived with many of the tops broken off (they were quite beat up looking, so I tossed them), I called the flower people. They were super nice and sent me a brand new bouquet this past Tuesday, and included a clear glass vase, too. This time, the roses were a pale orange. They are definitely not salmon, not a pinky-orange. They are a light orange, even though this photo doesn't show that color truly as it is.

Aren't they pretty? I took this photo earlier today. I tried several photos, but just can't get one the exact shade of orange that the roses are...

The roses have opened wide, and are so big. They smell so good, too. A lot of times, roses from florists don't really smell like roses, but these do. The deep pink ones in the first bouquet smelled good, also. Also the alstroemeria are holding up very well. Those are usually the first to bite the dust from local florists... the petals start falling within a day or two. Not these. Very fresh flowers.

And speaking of fresh... we are having our septic tank pumped out today.


We haven't had this done in about 5 years, and really should do it every 3 years. The guy we always hired in the past quit doing it. His truck was yellow and was named "Honey Dipper", painted it on the sides of the tank. My mom found this guy and had their tank emptied this past week, along with 2 of my sisters'. My other sister didn't need it because they had problems with their drain field last year, so I think they handled their septic tank back then.

Kev had to do a little bit of digging to find the opening to our tank, and he hates that part... though last time was worse. This time he found it pretty quickly so the hole wasn't quite so big. But then the guy that came out told Kev he really wanted the other opening, so Kev had to dig some more.

There were 2 guys with their big blue tank truck, and they were here about an hour and a half. It cost $150, which isn't bad. After this October, due to some changes in regulations on how to handle the tank contents, costs will likely more than double. I guess the septic tank pumping businesses would usually dump the waste onto fields for fertilizer, but now they have to dump at a waste treatment plant and pay those fees. I'm ok with the cost increase... every time I think of Michigan farmers growing produce in a field fertilized with human shit, well... yuk. How that's so terribly different in my mind from spreading cattle & horse manure, I don't know. It just is.

It is a beautiful sunny, warm day outside, about 75 degrees with a nice breeze, and I'm sitting inside with all of the windows now closed and 11 scented candles burning throughout the house. Not thinking about it, we had almost all of our windows open... downwind from where our septic tank is located. My heck, did that stink. The guys left about 10 minutes ago, but I'm not prepared to open all the windows up just yet.

When they first opened our septic tank, Sammy was real interested in looking into it. And then describing it to me. Which made me curious, so of course, I had to look into it, too. Sammy said something like why is it kind of purple and why doesn't it look like poop? I just said it looks like shit to me, got a whiff and took off for the house and realized I had to close all the windows quick. You couldn't pay me $150 to do that. Those 2 men have my appreciation and admiration. Kev said they were very professional about it, and did a great job. They even rinsed the tank out and pumped that out before they left. The Honey Dipper guy never did that. Also the Honey Dipper truck was really old and dirty, these guys are clearly proud of their truck -- it was clean. Definitely seem to take pride in their work. I think they were a father & son team.

When you think about it, they have a pretty good thing going. My family will be calling them every 3 years at least, and once they have a big client base, it's a steady business. They may pump shit for a living, but I take a lot of shit for a living... like most people do. So, maybe, yeah, you could pay me $150 to do that. Have my own business, call my own shots, get a nice tan, have a great CD collection in my truck. Hmmm...