We have been battling to keep up with the workload here in between rain showers and wind storms. The wind has been relentless since March and our sand pile seems to decrease in size with every storm. I wonder how many tons we lose each year due to windy conditions. Frank Heinen may have to figure this into his equations when he does his yearly stockpile production measuring. Mike Nabor and Carl Iezek are dredging near Independence; putting in some long days so we have a decent sized stockpile there for Independence and Jesup before we need to come back to Tama in June. These two fellows survived another M.S.H.A. inspection with limited infractions. The inspector was very thorough with his investigation and was on site for several hours. We came out of this with one violation that was easily remedied.

This has certainly been a spring that has attracted inspectors from many different departments to our facilities. In April, we went thru inspections from the D.N.R. and the E.P.A. at Tama. If O.S.H.A. comes along yet this year, we should have the whole alphabet covered.

The ready mix end of the operation has been steady as well as the scale business. Dave Sokol and Judy Ochs have had to be on their toes to keep up with the demand of today's hurry up world and impatience. The rest of the staff here has done a super job also, adjusting to a new manager and maybe seeing things done a little bit differently than they were used to. Upcoming projects for us here include a new South Tama School, an addition to the Meskwaki Casino, a new Sheller Building for Pioneer, a Water Treatment Plant for the Meskwakis and a new Iowa River Bridge on Highway 30 to name a few.  Also we are supplying concrete sand for the paving on Highway 30 that will be done by the Fred Carlson Co.  This amounts to about ten thousand tons. We have our work cut out for us for the year I just hope we can keep up and the weather cooperates.