Friday, June 6, 2008

Changes ahead.,,

The bankruptcy judge announced today that he will be approving the Mendocino/Marathon plan. That means the mill/timber lands will change ownership to Mendocino Forest Products. They have a good reputation and this appears to be good news for the community. It will be awhile before we know how or if our jobs will be impacted but putting aside my personal fears I have to admit that for this county this is really good news.

The second part of the plan places the town, residential and commercial, and the power plant in the hands of Marathon Banking. We do not know what that will mean to us as far as the housing goes. We know they will want to sell the houses but we do not know if that will begin immediately or if it will take a year or so to get the ball rolling.... the longer the delay the better for us on this one!

Since our job serves both the mill and the power plant, we do not know what to expect in that respect but I have a reasonable expectation of staying on since we are a contracted service they will need and it is generally more cost effective to use us than to hire inhouse people.

So that is the scoop on the situation here for now. Maxxam/ Hurwitz will be gone and a new regime will take over.

New housing...







This is the first section of the outside areas I have tackled. The brambles were well rooted and took me an hour to dig them out. The horsetails pulled up rather easily and the grass I just weed wacked down and topped with cardboard for weed supression.



And this is the same area a week later....



That is 1 1/2 yards of chips from the mill.

I still need to plant something in those window boxes and that is all I will do in this area since we have no idea how long we will be able to stay here.

I think it looks a lot better even if it is rather barren looking. I will probably switch out some of these pots for some of my terracotta colored pots so they all match.

At least it no longer looks like the messiest place on the street and several people have already commented on the improvement.