M.D. Vaden
vadenphotography.com
It's been a while since I've been here - my hardest summer yet. We moved to Ruch near Medford, Oregon, from Beaverton, Oregon. Part to get out of the heavy traffic / urban area, part to live near family, and part to leave business for something easier like sales.
All I could find to pay decent wages in Medford was selling Cadillacs / Buicks. Oddly, within 3 weeks, my body started to ache worse from standing around most of the day than it did from pruning. To cut the story short, I quit. We are all on good terms, but it's not my environment.
The only good day in sales was when I drove north to get my daughter's braces off - got back at 9pm and had to shovel 8 cubic yards of gravel for a camp trailer delivery the next day. That hard work made the ache go away.
Anyway, I may have found the best thing - I started business Monday after getting 3 accepted bids in 2 hours in the morning going door to door. In the afternoon, I was hired part time by a landscape company as part foreman, part customer service, part designer.
So I now am in business, but have easier part time work to take the intensity out. Anyway, what I wanted to share for certain was that if tree work ever seems hard, realize that the pains pale in comparison to other things.
Oddly, the sales tore away at my recreations due to the hours - photography, hiking, my web site and so on. Now I have hours to drive to the coast, the Redwood Forests (which I just saw for the first time yesterday) and other things. This winter, I'm going to submit to teach a community education Tree Care class at Rogue Community College in the area since I dropped the class scheduled at Portland Community College that was slated for last June. I hear they want to get a horticulture program going again - maybe I'll ask to teach a credit class in case they want to build up from one or two classes.
Well, I have not been on here for 2 months, maybe 3. We just got internet hooked up for us all (since our cell phone does not work out in Ruch, 15 miles into the hills west of Medford). So I'll be in touch with all of you again.
All I could find to pay decent wages in Medford was selling Cadillacs / Buicks. Oddly, within 3 weeks, my body started to ache worse from standing around most of the day than it did from pruning. To cut the story short, I quit. We are all on good terms, but it's not my environment.
The only good day in sales was when I drove north to get my daughter's braces off - got back at 9pm and had to shovel 8 cubic yards of gravel for a camp trailer delivery the next day. That hard work made the ache go away.
Anyway, I may have found the best thing - I started business Monday after getting 3 accepted bids in 2 hours in the morning going door to door. In the afternoon, I was hired part time by a landscape company as part foreman, part customer service, part designer.
So I now am in business, but have easier part time work to take the intensity out. Anyway, what I wanted to share for certain was that if tree work ever seems hard, realize that the pains pale in comparison to other things.
Oddly, the sales tore away at my recreations due to the hours - photography, hiking, my web site and so on. Now I have hours to drive to the coast, the Redwood Forests (which I just saw for the first time yesterday) and other things. This winter, I'm going to submit to teach a community education Tree Care class at Rogue Community College in the area since I dropped the class scheduled at Portland Community College that was slated for last June. I hear they want to get a horticulture program going again - maybe I'll ask to teach a credit class in case they want to build up from one or two classes.
Well, I have not been on here for 2 months, maybe 3. We just got internet hooked up for us all (since our cell phone does not work out in Ruch, 15 miles into the hills west of Medford). So I'll be in touch with all of you again.
