As soon as we had arrived and took possession of our new home we immediately knew that we would need to find a quality, reputable landscaper. Since we initially had no power, we decided to focus on the outside of the home. The property has so much beautiful, mature landscaping (I was particularly excited about the multiple bougainvilleas because I have always loved them and wished I could have had the tropical, climbing plants back home). Much like the home, however, the once beautiful landscaping has also sat untended to for so very long that there was no way Dan and I could have handled it on our own. We needed entire trees (plural) taken down, not to mention tons of heavy cutting back, brush removed; the list just went on and on! It was overwhelming to say the least. We asked around for possible landscaping contacts and quickly discovered that everyone at Consejo Shores had the same recommendation for everything. There was only one person we needed to meet. Enter our new best friend: Marco.
As it turns out, Marco has been the head groundskeeper for all of Consejo Shores since, well. . . forever! Not only is he onsite working within the neighborhood every day, but he has also watched all of these houses as they were built and he knew exactly what our home once looked like in it’s original glory. We immediately searched him out, introduced ourselves, and scheduled an appointment to have him come take a look at the property. He was beyond helpful and agreed to handle all of the landscaping for us; including cutting down several dead trees, removing an enormous termite nest, and thinning the rest of the trees and brush back to expose both our home as well as stunning 180 degree views of the Caribbean Sea. We explained that we had to focus on getting our power turned on, so we agreed to meet him at our home the following day. After rejoicing over the HUGE blessing of finally having power before a long weekend, we did what any new owner would do when acquiring a home that has sat vacant: we ran the water; at that moment, alllll of our rejoicing stopped! To say that the water smelled bad is an enormous understatement. It wreaked of sulphur but also something else; something worse. Decaying matter perhaps? I didn’t know, but I did know that I wasn’t going to be taking a shower in that stuff anytime soon. Not to mention the fact that I had an entire filthy, vacant house that I needed to begin cleaning and no clean, usable water to do so! To make matters worse, Marco and his crew were about to show up and the smell had completely permeated our entire home to the point that it could be smelled outside of our house as well! Not exactly the first impression that I wanted to make with our new landscaper and his crew.🙈
I was mortified when Marco arrived but he didn’t bat an eye. The kind and helpful man that he is, he simply said “Oh, it looks like you’re going to need me to pump out and clean your well today, too.“ Seriously?! YES, please! Marco assured me that we shouldn’t need to dig a new well. He said that he had the same type of well growing up and the wretched smell we were experiencing was simply caused by stagnant water that had been sitting for so long it created bacteria. He agreed to pump out the stagnant water and chlorinate the well. Not only did Marco and his crew handle all of the landscaping for us and take care of cleaning out the well, he also removed a large termite nest from one of our trees and treated our home with insecticide. All in ONE DAY and at a price that was a blessing in and of itself!
To say that we are grateful for Marco doesn’t adequately express our deep appreciation for this incredibly hard-working, kind-hearted, family man. We have come to know him and his children over the past few days and we can’t wait for our son, Dean, to meet Marco’s son, Martin. They are the same age and Martin is just as sweet and hardworking as his father; definitely the type of influence I want my son to have in his life. Marco, his family, and his crew of hard workers not only eased our minds by taking care of all of the outside work, they freed us up to be able to focus on the inside of the house and gave us something truly priceless: HOPE! With our spirits feeling renewed, we left Marco and his crew and headed off with our paint swatches from the U.S. to find an actual Sherwin Williams paint store in downtown Corozal! Little did we know the craziness that was about to ensue! But again. . . that is another post for another day. Time to get back to work! 😉