What I really like to push with my Eco garden is that we're inviting wildlife in. Believe it or not and I'm not just talking about deer and rabbits I'm talking about birds and the beneficial insects the pollinators which you know the bees. The Hummingbird the butterfly those types of things that natural beauty. I mean wow you sit out there and you can get a ruby throated hummingbird at the same time you get a monarch butterfly and then at the same time you get a honey bee. I mean how cool would that be. It's happened to me so I think it's pretty cool.

When it comes to planting trees you mentioned that you'd like to plant a lot of trees.

How would the typical person plants a tree what's the right way to do that the right way to plant a tree to make sure that your law is at least three times the width of the rope. The adage you want to remember is planted high or it will die. So what happens is that so many people don't know this. They dig a hole too deep they don't dig it wide enough but when you dig the hole too deep you're not letting the flair be somewhat exposed to the top of the hole. So when you bury the flare which is like to go down the trunk and then once the roots start going a word that's called the root layer. And we don't want to necessarily cover that up with a ton of soil a very light covering maybe even half an inch is okay. Remember that tree roots they grow out they don't grow down.

Do you think we water them too much or not enough.

we want to really make sure that first season that we plant that tree to try to get it established properly that we're watering probably depending on where you live your soil type. How much rain. Mother Nature has given us really an inch a week is what we are looking for.

You're going to have to bend down or kneel down and touch the soil. You want to see how that soil is if it's moist. Don't lie to your tree that day.

What I like best about the Northside is simply that it was exactly that simple. It wasn't any the classification of people and stuff. And we had some people that that lived there in the 40s and 50s that had some money. And one person the neighbor down the street owned service transfer company and lived in a nice brick house a block down the street from me and his son was my best friend. There was no we got you don't got kind of feeling between anybody and there was the shop owners and there was the factory workers and the one I didn't mention about when we were driving around the old Pilat line company processing the tobacco from Vernon County mostly making cigars and chewing tobacco and that's a big brick building that is now an apartment building by the North Side beach.

And when we first came back from my military my wife and I looking for apartments decided we'd go in there and see what it like well that tobacco smell was still so bad in that particular the hallways and stairways. We climbed up two floors and climbed back down to the floors and went out. But that was another place that employed quite a few people. Most of those you know like I said as we were driving around people tended to live closer to where they worked. Then people do today of course.

So anyway the simplicity and the acceptance. For instance right across the street from my father's small meat market grocery store was a few canned goods was the extent and produce right was that but right across the street was a very nice very good liquor store.

And the fellow who and the liquor store had a sedan and he also had a pickup truck. Twice a week my brothers sister mom and dad would get in the back of a pickup truck. They didn't get in the seat in as kids for kids and we go as far go and see to the river Black River comes under the river road bridges then. And fish all day and have meals and stuff. And then at 5 o'clock or so we all piled back in the back of the pickup truck and and back to George Street.

Let me ask you this when you guys were in your car were you wearing seatbelts.

There were no seatbelts and we didn't have a car. That's the other thing about it. Many people like my next door neighbor he had a car but it was in the garage. 90 percent of the time he worked as a custodian at the post office and he would simply get on the bus and go to daughters work downtown. The only powerful post office in those days and that the car would come out of the garage once in a while.

When the family would maybe go for a Sunday drive that was a nice big deal and they didn't fight me because I was a good friend of one of the sons and they invite me to ride along with them. But to cars just were not used either no longer from the south side to the extent they are now. But the South Side was much more car oriented. First of all it was spread out over a lot more a lot more area. So using the car was more of a sense like the old Trane company was a way to south ditches of the La Crosse and in fact you know the Village Shopping Center what was called The Village Shopping Center. Yup. Before that was built.

There was one small restaurant which would be back about where the Central High School football field is. A little path road going back there. Nothing else was anywhere around there because there was a there was a teacher at the time of the 40s in the early 50s. And so I really enjoyed growing up in that environment.

Was it called the North Side back when you were younger.

Yeah yeah. In fact the idea of it being a separate community that died many years before that and and then they built. A Lang drive to connect could your eyes actually lit up when you said that. So you recall when they built lane drive this year before that and you know you meet you where you over the causeway which wasn't that big of a deal. That's where you got from one to the other for many years and then there is just a kind of road or a bench. And then they actually built a lane drive built it up so that it was the 12 season or 12 months all season road.

So before they had the bridge then did you have to wait for all the trains to get through. Absolutely.

Yeah. In fact those overpasses both the George Street narrow street ones were put in very late in the game in the 50s and the 60s you know you had to wait for trains and that kind of an interesting one that I've enjoyed here that I was president of the Board of Education when we built the new logo. Well. If you can remember that that street going out had to go over all of the railroad tracks you know eventually to get out to. I was 16 and I thought the city was great about it talked him into putting that overpass over the railroad tracks.

So your your as the Board of Education was able to talk the city into that. Yes. And they were very co-operative.

And they they knew me pretty well in fact. I mean I can tell you a story you can use if you want to and that is when we were building the new Logan the school where it just becoming a fiscally independent operation and the city no longer had to approve everything. But we took it to the city the building of it and present you what we're going to do and what we had done in research and all that to know what we are building in life and they really bought into it and so on. But when we're done with the first thing on the agenda when you are done walked onto that rotunda area the outside the city or outside the council chambers or right the wrong thing and I'm standing there for just a minute. One Two Three Four Five Six aldermen came up the hill to tell me what my father meant to them as they were growing up.

So your dad made a difference to these gentlemen. Absolutely. Wow that's awesome.

In fact one of the fellows names initials were shot in the ceiling of the back room with a 22. That was but but he was just that kind of a person who would see people who needed and help them with groceries with a lot of things.

What's the story behind the 22.

Well I don't know they were just fooling around back there and no no big deal just having fun and some laughter time I guess. But you know nothing this liquor store across the street was the only place with them. Oh there's that. St James and St John's directly St James they could come and get their communion wine. Well. Several times my father would meet them in the middle George Street. Bring him back to the back room and feed him some food and so on so that he could nicely get back to their rectory.

Back on Caledonia's street what was the name of your father's grocery store just Temtes market.

How was it was the grocery store back in those states similar to what a bar or a church is now where people get together and it with a little bit a little bit but most of it is just there.

My father was so welcoming and great. Another little story about this there was a family on the north side who lost their home that kicked out of renting or whatever. And they had a couple kids and there was an old.

We called it the little holes behind our house and our house had all of 620 square feet and this was the little house.

I must have been a tiny house because he showed me the house he grew up in.

Yeah. Well this house of course is no longer there. But what he did is he moved the family in there and got some business furniture and stuff for them that they needed above what they could bring from their apartment or whatever. And he lived in there for several years until he got them things together and could move into another real house.

I didn't know about this until one of the sons who was very much involved with refereeing in youth sports and stuff saw me and told me the story and like the Six aldermen outside in the vestibule area there there were seven crying men to hear their stories to tell of what my father meant when my father passed away when I was a young man. 13 I guess i was. So I never knew him as a full adult. But he did because he was 50 when he passed away and he had to tell me their story. And you were so moving the stories that every one of them said they're not weeping tears of joy telling their story in the same way that this other young man who was given peace with his father and other family to live for a couple of years by my father who was always giving that kind of a temporary legacy.

Yeah I learned a lot from him and I built my lifestyle around what I didn't know about him and that's the way it is right.

Were you close with your mother.

Well after my father passed. Yes in fact we saw my wife and I we saw my mother through the end. She was a worker all to keep the family together and stuff but then she moved into storyteller's we got her in there when she was in her 60s and she lived to 83 and I had the good fortune because I worked at Tech I was vice president of Tech at the time and I would if I was running around don't I would stop and check on my mother.

Well one day I did. And she'd gotten up got half or three fourths crest sat on the bed and just laid herself back down. And that was the end of it. And I walked in and saw so I called Nine one one. It wasn't that number of them. But anyway he said to Doc what time you left here. He was the coroner and I don't know if it was still his way but if somebody died outside of a hospital the coroner had to come to make sure that everything was fine.

And Doc would tell you I've always had a cigar never left hanging out of his mouth and I side of the bed and I'm on this side.

Right. And he looking at Earnhardt rolls the price of Mr. temte he said he died peacefully. He never suffered a movement that was good.

Oh yeah I bet. As a son that's probably great to hear.

Yeah yeah it was. So anyway and. The variety of people on the north side like I say this one family owned service transfer finally bought out by what was the big gave we transfer which was the other. The other big one and other people were very much. We had a doctor and Denis that sort of thing

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Sarah what's your background. So I've always enjoyed nature always enjoyed being outside. I decided that it was time for me to get out of the entire retail setting and so I went back to school for my sEcond associate degree and I got that Western technical college in the landscape horticulture program. I graduated ti 2016 and then by 2017 I was asked to come back and teach in the program.

So you were able to take your love for being outside your skills that you learned teaching and then wrap that up into your own your own business with Eco Gardens.

My Washburn Yeah actually right after I graduated I started Eco garden by Washburn and I thought oh boy what am I doing. Ok so I had a very good business background and a pretty good knowledge for horticulture. Every day I learn something different and I tell you bouncing ideas off people and trying to make sure that you stand by all the needs of everybody. I know you can't do it but trying it is challenging but it's fun when you actually have a lot of success at it.

What are some of the service organizations that you belong to the American Legion.

I'm involved with them. In fact we've been discussing some tree replacement options up at the Onalaska Legion post and though I belong to a referral group we are a group of small business owners and leaders and we get together about three times a month. We discuss what our business is doing kind of like the current trends in our business and what type of referrals that we're looking for is.

So why the name Eco Gardens by Washburn
I wanted to include my name because I feel that a lot of people knew me if I'd been in this area ever since I was 4 years old. So that's kind of why I wanted to include my last name. But the Eco Gardens carpet the Eco friendly like the native plants the edible landscaping the rain garden that we associate with sustainable landscaping sustainable being encountered nothing but you leave it better than you found it really sustainable to me meaning locally sourced that we're not putting a whole lot of wasted energy into creating something just to have it Eco involving wildlife and the Gardens parks Gardens is you know the sustainable landscape and garden design. So I want to be planting something more along the lines of where you're going to go outside and you're going to say oh look at that beautiful you know and it cuts around in your garden. Those are the parts of what I thought was important to me and important for me to give back to the community. And that's how I put my theme of my business together. So what do you what do you want people to know about you that I do what I say I'm going to do to help people get outside to actually enjoy where they exist.

I think that I can help you very creative in getting what you want within your budget to create outdoor landscape.

I think a lot of people when they think of landscaping they think of putting edging around the house throwing some rocks in there and calling it good maybe some bark in the back or on the tree. What does landscaping mean to you sir.

Landscaping can mean so many different things. And to me it means getting out into your yard or at your business area beautification. OK. We have trees which I'm a big proponent of planting trees but always you have to have the right plant in the right place. You don't want to planted sugar maple in a real pay corridor because you know that they're not going to fit the heightened with restrictions that you have in a tight corridor. What I like to make sure to do is to plant something native because then we have an easier time with the establishment and maintenance of the tree and then we go down to our next level perhaps shrub.

So hardy shrub woody shrub this area providing a lot of another habitat area for wildlife that we have are our perennials. We can certainly plant things in the landscape that give us a really nice show all year long to.

Dean McHugh excavating joining us on the McHugh excavating podcast. Do you belong to any professional organizations?

We do. We belong to the Wisconsin Underground Contractors Association. It's a statewide organization of companies that do water and sewer and other underground type work. I'm not sure how many members are in it. I wouldn't be surprised if it's around 100 or so but we've won their safety award seven times in the last. So that's one of the organizations we belong to and we're active in our safety director has been on the safety insurance committee. There are a number of years. We also belong to the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association. There are some people generically called the road builders. They're an organization of a lot of companies that are larger than asserting that. But a lot of contractors that work on department transportation projects and interstates and on some of the highways since we do some of that work. We also belong to that organization we belong to La Crosse Chamber Commerce cluster development corporation and a few other smaller civic organizations like we're right on the edge of home and here so we belong to the Holmen Business too.

I also know that water is a passion of yours and you help other countries with their water problems.

Yes I'm involved with Rotary International through the Holmen Rotary Club and because of my experience with McHugh excavating you know water treatment which is what septic systems are and you know larger wastewater treatment plants to cities municipalities use you know all involved involved cleaning the water before it goes either into the groundwater or goes out into the river. Unfortunately there's areas in our world where the only water available to drink is of the quality of what our sewers are. So I've been involved with a number of projects mainly around Lima but some other areas in Peru also where we hope loopers nonprofit organizations and come up with some solutions whether it be individual filtration at the home level or at the village level. We've done a few and some smaller two to 3000 person villages were put in a central treatment so that the water that is available to them can be made safe to drink.

How does somebody reach McHugh excavating Dean?

The office number is out the summer is 608-783-1404 and my cell number is 608-769-4803. And all of our e-mail addresses are on our website which is MchughExcavating.com.

You go to the About Us tab on our website. McHughExcavating.com and there's a link with right by each person's picture to email them.

McHugh Excavating has been in business since 1976 how has business changed since then?
Good question. From our standpoint he's gotten a little bit bigger.
1976 it was my dad and one guy but like with most businesses that have been around for decades.

They're not the same size they were when we started our company currently has about 40 employees. We've been as high as 60, years ago that we were covering or covering a larger geographic area at that time. So we've pulled that back a little bit. Not that we don't go out of town. We still do. But that's probably the biggest change is the the change in the size of our business.

Really you know some of the technology changes in the equipment and the trucks and of course if you get into septic systems I hate to talk about septic systems too much because it's a relatively small part of our business but it's something an owner faces needing a new septic for 20 or 30 year old house. There are newer technologies available now that weren't 30 or 40 years ago. So there are ways to make septic systems or replacement systems fit on lots where maybe they want to put the patch. We're different and different ways of attacking the problem that didn't exist before.

You mentioned in 1976 as your dad and another guy with your business growing. Are you in need of people to work for you.

We're always in need of good skilled people. We run into the same problem a lot of folks do in the trades. Most of our positions are skilled. So we're looking for skilled people yet. How do you become skilled. If no one can give you a chance to start with. We do have an apprenticeship program through the Laborers Union and the African Union. So there are some opportunities just you know a couple every year where a person can get in all the way on the ground floor. But you know to have apprentices you need to have skill Jurney workers that can help guide them and teach them and mentor them. So there is only a certain amount of the spots we can fill each year. We're always looking for people that want to work outdoors on their hands who want to learn a skill. Folks that even grew up on a farm are good candidates for us because they want to fix things they want to run smaller pieces of equipment in their use. You know they're used to the work. It's not easy work to work construction. It's a very financially rewarding work and I always tell people your job is never going to get shipped to China if you are construction it's always going to be here. But yes we're we're always looking for people to come in and apply and see what we have. And we have dump truck drivers to a number of different positions that people can try to fill mechanics in the shop.
How does somebody reach McHugh excavating Dean?

The office number is out the summer is 608-783-1404 and my cell number is 608-769-4803. And all of our e-mail addresses are on our website which is MchughExcavating.com.

You go to the About Us tab on our website. McHughExcavating.com and there's a link with right by each person's picture to email them.