When Carol Coddington saw a question posted on an online gardening forum about a septic tank problem, she jumped right into the conversation. After all, septic tanks and gardening have filled her work and leisure hours for years, and if anyone was qualified to educate the alarmed gardener who couldn’t locate her septic tank, feared having it pumped and wondered what could be planted near it, it was Coddington.
“I feel I have to reply, because my husband and I just sold our septic tank truck,” Coddington wrote to her fellow gardener. “Don’t EVER be afraid of a septic tank. You just have to learn how to do things correctly.”
During the years that she and her husband, Keith, operated K and C Septic Service in Huntington County, Pa., Coddington handled office duties and occasionally rode along on service calls, but she still managed to spend at least an hour a day in the garden when the weather cooperated.
“I’ve gardened my whole life,” says Coddington, 59. “I remember helping my mother in the garden when I was a little girl.”
Keeping up with both the garden and the septic business was often a challenge since peak season for both activities somewhat coincides.
“My busiest time was when I sent the bills out every month,” Coddington says. “I made a point of having them out the same day every month and I made sure that was done before I did any gardening.
“After that I could take the phone out to the garden and get some gardening done without missing any business calls,” she adds. “But still, things in the garden would always get ahead of me.”
Not this year, though. The Coddingtons sold their 150 portable restrooms in 2006, their septic truck in late 2007 and officially retired. The garden is now job one, and the phone can stay inside.
“Now that we’re retired I can spend even more time in the garden,” Coddington says.
And she basically started that garden from scratch this year, moving plants from the yard of the 1860s farmhouse to the yard of the new house the Coddingtons built on a different part of their 200-acre central Pennsylvania farm.
“We’ve always lived in old two-story houses with old house issues like the floors that weren’t level and outlets that wouldn’t work,” she says. “We decided that when we retired we were going to live on one floor and have everything brand new for a change.”
Everything brand new, except the flowers.
“We rented out the farm house and I told the renter, ‘you can plant things in the garden, but I’m moving the flowers,’” she says.
While Coddington puts in a few annuals, most of her flowers are perennials. Some, like calla lilies, dahlias and gladiolas, she digs up and brings inside, then replants in spring because they aren’t cold hardy. Her favorites, however, are irises and lilies, which can tolerate the winters.
“I love bright colors and I love the smell of lilies,” she says. “Everyone is a sucker for certain things. With my daughter it’s shoes, with me it’s flowers. I’m a sucker for flowers. If I get money for my birthday or Christmas, that’s where it goes. I’ve probably spent thousands on flowers, which is why I brought them with me when we moved. Plus, it was good to move then … it thinned them out.”
Coddington is by no means a flower snob, admitting she likes to rescue plants from what she calls the “almost dead” shelf at home improvement warehouse stores. “Sometimes it’s just a flower that’s done blooming and has to go through its cycle again.”
The Coddingtons, who were dairy farmers before getting into the portable sanitation and septic-pumping business, grow some vegetables on their property too. Aside from gardening, they are looking forward to eventually taking their first vacation together in 36 years.
“First we were milking cows, then we had the septic business so we could never get away together,” she says. “We are going to take two weeks and go to Missouri to see our oldest daughter, her husband and baby and then out to Colorado Springs to see our youngest, and then to Denver to see my cousin. From there we would like to see Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, the Corn Palace, and anything else that seems like something we would like to see. At any time we could change our direction and go someplace else.”
Seems like the Coddingtons’ retirement is coming into full bloom – both in and out of the garden.
After Hours is an occasional feature that describes how business owners reconcile work life with family, leisure time, charitable pursuits, and personal interests and passions. Pumper welcomes story ideas. If you take part in something interesting outside work, or if you know someone in the pumping business who does, please send a note to editor@pumper.com.
