Building Trellises

My parents came by to spend the day with me, finally putting up the trellises for the grapevines while we wait for the bee man to come take the hive away.



The beeman did not show up between 9 and 11 like he was supposed to. We tried calling the home office, but they were closed for the weekend. I had the phone number of the estimator, so we tried him. He answered, but was unable to contact the technician or the owner. There wasn't really anything he could do for us. Mom finally called another bee removal company. The new bee company was sending an estimator between 1 and 2pm, so we stayed in the backyard working on the trellises.



We'd been pretty productive though. At first we all worked together to get the posts bolted into the simpsons, then dad added the 2x4 on tops. It's unusual to have the top bar, but since I don't have a long line of posts with earth anchors on the end, we had to do something to keep the posts from bending inwards. After getting the wire up, I thought the trellises came out quite nicely.



At 12:20pm, the technician from the first bee company finally called. He offered no explanation, but said that he was leaving his house and was on his way. I noticed that he was calling from an 805 area code and asked how long he expected it to take him to get there. "About an hour."

I called my mom, who had gone to visit my grandpa. She said to just let the estimator from the new company and the technician from the first company come. She wasn't taking any chances relying on the first company at this point.

But when she came back from her visit, the estimator called to verify the directions, and she told him that we may not need him to come out now. She'd call him back and let him know.

Well, 1:30 came and went. So did 2pm, and 2:30pm. Still no one had come. I called the technician (I love caller ID), and left a message indicating that I hoped he was still on his way. At 3pm, mom called the estimator back - he was already in San Clemente, and would have to schedule it for Monday morning instead.

We had one other thing to build as well. I planted some peas in my kitchen garden, and I needed to construct some trellises for them to grow on.



A few stakes and jute, a hammer and a staple gun. I had my trellis



3:30. Mom called the technician one more time and he answered. He claimed that he had not said he was on his way, and that he would be here at 5pm. Excuse me? No, it wasn't that long ago, I know what I was told.

I really just want him to show up and take the hive away. I"m not particularly afraid of bees, but I don't like having them in my bedroom wall. And I don't like that I can't walk around my house barefoot without being very careful not to step on any bees.

Come 4:30, he calls again. He won't be coming. His excuse? The company was supposed to give him money for gas and they never did. So he's not coming.

Mom called the new company to confirm. My co-worker also has a beehive in his house, and come Monday, I'll be sure to tell him not to use Adkins Bee Removal. Hopefully, the new company does a better job.