One New Year, coming right up. I hope everyone had a good Christmas. I did but now I have to lose a few pounds. (Never met a cookie that I didn't like.) And I am now ready for winter to be over.

It has been downright chilly. (Cold enough to use jumper cables on the toaster.) We did get sod out just before Christmas and plan on covering everyone again in January if it warms up just a little. Call the office, leave a number and we will call you the minute we can cut. If it doesn't warm up then you might check out

Winter is a good time to catch up on research, trends, and new Stuff. Lots of catalogues are showing up, new ones and old favorites, that are full of plants, tools, gardening aids, sprinklers.......you know, Stuff. Some have such great pictures and plant descriptions that you just have to buy one,.......or two,........or..! (Sorry, lost my chain of thought.)

Alas, as with all things, a grain of salt, or common sense, should be used when buying. For instance, people spend a month checking out dishwashers and 10 seconds looking at sod. They both cost the same but sod will cost 3 times as much to replace when if it goes bad. The only difference between a smart shopper and a sucker is a little bit of thinking and there are plenty of snake oil salesmen ready to suck up the slackers.

2010 is going to start slow, there are too many vacant houses out there and the inventory is not going down very fast. Landscapers who are good with irrigation should do okay, there is a lot of rebuild work to be done, especially if the new laws are pushed to the front. The sod market is going to be tough, not much demand and sod farms everywhere. (This is my third recession and very few things are any different.)

The most powerful force in the market right now is "word of mouth". If someone does a job that looks poor, the word will spread very fast and that person will find no more work in that area. Then they will pop up in places that they haven't been before. They are not expanding, they are trying to replace markets they have turned off. Buyers who don't do their homework will get sucked in and down. (Realtors have said, if the yard looks bad, people don't even want to look inside the house.)

Forecasters have predicted oil to be $110/barrel by summer and that equates to $4/gal for fuel. That eliminates wasted trips or wandering around. Fortunately, everyone has worked with me to keep the trucks full and that really keeps the price down. If oil does get that high, the economic recovery will be very slow.

Speaking of changes in fuels. If you ever have to use fuel mixed with ethanol in your small motors such as saws, mowers, weed eaters, etc. you should look at using an additive to protect the motors. In Oregon, the gas stations have kept premium gas pumps without ethanol just for those uses. They have had a lot of problems with the ethanol mix in older motors and motors that don't get regular use such as boats or ATV's.

Well, I have to put my closet on and go shovel snow. I hope skiers are having a great time because this golfer is wearing holes in the carpet. Ideal Sod wishes everyone the best for the New Year and if you have any ideas or innovations that you want to share, we got Stuff too.

vrbo.com or homeaway.com for a place in the sun. (I have had good experiences with vrbo.com.)