Finally! At last the newsletterhas arrived! We’ll be issuingthe newsletter monthly to all ofour customers. This is the bestway to reach out to everyoneand let them know what’s beengoing on, prize drawings, reci-pes, education, etc.

First and foremost, we at FjLawn Care would like to thankeach and every one of you foryour support from the begin-

ning, 9/6/11. We have worked hard to reach out and buildrelationships with our customers. As you can imagine, holdingon to good customers can be challenge in this industry with allthe competition out there. We’re going to work even harderthis year!

Reflecting on the last year, we experienced an increase in ourmowing clientele last Spring followed by a slow periodthrough July and August due to the drought, which by the waywas marked as the second driest in MN history. Most of ourlawns had no irrigation, so mowing went biweekly for some.September things picked up with Fall maintenance (aerating,fertilizing, seeding), followed by Fall clean ups. By the timeFall clean ups arrived my website optimization really picked upreaching a large audience. We were busy daily with clean upsfor six solid weeks, between our mowing customers and newclients. Winter brought us our first snow storm 12/09 (13”),followed by a quiet December and January, and a rather busysecond half starting 2/1, with five days of Alberta Clippersputting down daily 1” snow falls and then weekly snow re-moval there after. We eventually added three crews to accom-modate our customers for more timely service. Well, here weare 3/24, knocking on the door to Spring, just in time for thisnews letter. Can’t think of a better way to kick things off forour 2013 lawn care season! We’ll be seeing you soon!

Welcome to Fj Lawn Care Newsletter!

Inside this issue:

Monthly Drawing 1

Spring Clean Upand Maintenance

2

Irrigation Vs NoIrrigation

2

Recipe’s by YiaYia!

3

Message to our cus-tomers

3

Special points ofinterest:

Monthly Prize Drawing

Spring Maintenanceand Clean ups

Irrigation Vs No Irriga-tion

Recipe’s by Yia Yia!Who’s Yia Yia? Readon!

March 2013Volume 1 /Issue 1

Fj Lawn CareFj Lawn CareFj Lawn Care2233 49th Ave N2233 49th Ave N2233 49th Ave NMinneapolis, MN 55430Minneapolis, MN 55430Minneapolis, MN 55430612-267-4646Www.fjlawncare.comWww.fjlawncare.comWww.fjlawncare.com

You Probably don’t find alot of lawn care companieshanding out money or greatdiscounts on a monthly ba-sis, but we felt it’s muchmore than just cutting grassor aerating yards. It’s aboutbuilding relationships and wewant to show our apprecia-tion for your loyalty andsupport of what we do foryou.

On a monthly basis we willdraw 1 name for a $25 giftcard to various establish-ments in the Metro area. Wewill also randomly draw25% off discounts on lawnservice.

At times these prize amountsmay increase, but will stay at$25 and 25% minimum.

Rules: Previous year cus-tomers will qualify for draw-ings through May 2013.Resigning customers or newcustomers in 2013 will qual-ify for each month of ser-vice. For example, if you

sign up for say seasonal mow-ing, which is April throughOctober, this would qualifyyou for 7 months. If you werea Maintenance customer, say 4fertilizations (4 months), 1core aeration (1 month), Overseeding(1 month), and say aFall clean up (1 month), thiswould qualify you for 7months of drawings. If youhave both services, say mow-ing and maintenance, and thefertilization fell on the samemonth as mowing, your namewould be entered twice. Onceyou win the gift prize, you canreenter in 4 months, and dis-counts in 3 months.

Gutter Cleaning Columbia Hts,MN Fall 2012

Humble beginnings! My sonDavid and I, May 2011.

January Winner $25 giftcard- Tom W. MplsFebruary Winner $25 giftcard. Mary T. MplsMarch Winner $25 giftcard. Annette D. Mpls25% off Spring maint.Cora L. Mpls

Spring Clean Up and Maintenance

deeper roots allow it to tap intomoisture, and stay healthier longerin times of little to no water. Theother thing is proper mowing,which we’ll talk more about in thenext issue, but keeping grassslightly longer DOES shade theroots and alleviate stress.

Irrigation If there were ever aworse time to get into lawn careon non irrigated yards, it was lastyear. I say this with all due respectfor our customers, but people

wanted results. In order to main-tain a healthy lawn, you needaround 1” of H2O per week tomaintain a green yard. None of ushand watering were keeping up tothis, because most yards were stillsemi brown. The surest way tokeep adequate water on your lawnis through timed, daily irrigation.Still, lawn maintenance with out itWILL increase the health of yourgrass in drought conditions andstay greener WITH your handwatering.

Irrigation Vs Non IrrigationMost of the yards we serviced in2012 had no irrigation. One bene-fit to aeration or general annualmaintenance is developing deeperroots in times of drought or lowmoisture. I wouldn’t say it’s al-ways a good thing to let your yardsstarve of little to no water. Evenwith the grass that go into dor-mancy, you can still have lawnsdie off due to lack of moisture.We saw this last year. The aera-tion over years DOES create

When we think of Spring we thinkcleaning, to fresh’n things up, tomake new, right? I always hear mywife Carla mention Spring Clean-ing with the house, like cleaningwindows, furniture, rugs and such.What a great feeling it is to have anice clean house as well! Like ourhomes our lawns also need acleaning to freshen up from thelong winter. Picture it, with theweight of the snow, mold, wet-ness, dirt, grime, etc. Your yardwants to breathe! What better wayto make this happen than a goodraking or dethatching. By rakingand dethatching you are pullingout the dead material and gettingair opening up avenues in whichSpring rains can feed our lawns

and get the water, fertilizer andnutrients to the roots. Springclean up is a very important firststep for maintenance to begin.Along with Clean up with thelawn, there is also clean up on thelandscape, trimming dead perenni-als, and top coating mulch. Thebig one is getting dead leaves offfrom previous Fall, and I knowwe’ve all been guilty of this before,of course some leaves were latedroppers anyways.

Spring Maintenance. Once theyard is opened up and breathing, itis absolutely essential to get yourfirst round of fertilizer down withpre emergent herbicide which willfor most of the season control alarge percentage of weeds in your

yard. Thicker the grass, thehigher percentage of weed con-trol! Along with fertilization withweed control, it’s always good todo a Core Aeration. As men-tioned to you when we spoke lastSpring, two aerations per year arealways good. Remember, decom-paction of the soil, deeper rootgrowth, thicker grass. Folks, letme just say, you can never ever gowrong with core aeration!

Page 2 FJ LAWN CARE

“It is Absolutely

Essential to get

your first round

of fertilizer

down with

preemergent

herbicide”

Spring Core Aeration Crystal, MN

Precision EdgingBrooklyn Park, MN

Ah, now to the fun stuff! Who’sYia Yia you ask? Yia Yia is Greekfor Grandma, and this Yia Yia ismy mother Maria. Each monthMaria’s going to add a new recipefor you to enjoy.

This first recipe which I men-tioned to some of you in the pastis called Chicken Avgolemono(Egg lemon sauce) soup.

Ingredients:1 whole chicken1 cup rice2 to 3 lemons5 eggs3 chicken flavored soupStock cubesSalt and pepper to taste

Cooking instruction: Add cutup whole chicken to half pot ofboiling water, and table spoon saltand tablespoon pepper. Boil untilchicken becomes tender. Removechicken from water and set asideto let cool. In a large mixing bowlcrack five eggs, and add lemonjuice of 2 squeezed lemons, blendthis mixture together until mixturebecomes frothy, and set aside.

Add two cups of water and chicken flavored cubes to chicken broth andbring broth to a boil, once boiling add 1 cup of rice, and boil 15 minutes,and then cover and set to medium heat. Once chicken is cool enough, re-move skin from chicken, meat from bones, and finely cut up the meat.Once the rice is fully cooked, you will be ready for mixing the soup stockand egg mixture together. Bring the egg/lemon mixture over to the stovearea. Using a ladle, carefully and slowly add, ladle by ladle the soup stockinto the egg/lemon mixture. With the other hand, using a hand held eggbeater, constantly mix this soup stock into the egg/lemon mixture, beingcareful not to add soup too fastor else you’ll create egg dropsoup, don’t worry it hasn’t hap-pened to me yet! Once you’vefilled the bowl ¾, switch theprocess and add this mixturefrom the bowl back to the largepot, ladle by ladle, and continuemixing with egg beater. Oncethe soup is all back into the potand mixed, add the finely cutchicken, and stir this in. It’s atthis point in the process that Ifine tune the taste, most of thetime it will taste too bland, so formy taste I will normally add more salt and pepper. If the soup doesn’t haveenough lemon flavor, squeeze a ½ of lemon, and so on until you find yourdesired taste. When finished, the soup should have a balanced slightly salty,lemony rich flavor. Finely, bring the soup to a simmer for ½ hour. Spinachpie, Greek salad, and/or French bread goes great with this soup. We maketons of it every year. Next months recipe is Keftedes (Greek meatballs)!

nurture them. Our lawn brings uslove and joy, a place to hang out

This concludes our first newsletterpublication and we hope you’vefound it most enjoyable. We’ll bepublishing these newsletters on amonthly basis for everyone toread.

Remember, going into Spring2013, the importance of stayingthe course with proper lawn main-tenance, and most customers lastyear were on their first round ofmaintenance. Beautiful, thicklawns require years of propermaintenance for great results. Weowe it to our selves to baby and

with the family, visit with friends,a place to think, and our lawnsbring us tranquility!

We’ll be reaching out to everyonein the up coming weeks to sign onfor the 2013 season and we hopeyou’ll be on board to let us carefor your yard.

In conclusion, I would like tothank my guys Merrill, Scottie,Joe, Kasey, Cody, Dave, Chuck,Mike, and Gary for all the hardwork and support they gave medoing snow removal this season.

Recipe’s by Yia Yia!

Message to our Customers

Page 3 FJ LAWN CARE

“Yia Yia is Greek

for Grandma,

and this Yia Yia is

my mother Maria.

Each month

Maria’s going to

add a new recipe

for you to

enjoy”

Yia Yia Preparing Keftedes (GreekMeatballs)

Owner, Jim Thiewes