The sounds of hammers echoed through the air today on Pond Park Road as we started our work on Donna's house. When we arrived, this is what we saw. A house foundation with floor joists in place and half of the joists covered. We would have a busy day of building ahead of us - just hoping that the grey clouds overhead would not turn into the rain that had been forcasted. Luckily it didn't and we had a great day of building. The raindrops waited until the very end of the day to appear.
We started the day with a safety talk from Herb. Suited everyone up with their hard hats, tool belts and safety glasses and off we went to work. The worksite is very wet and covered in clay / mud so we were able to bales of straw that were spread around the areas that most of the traffic would travel - it certainly made a huge difference. Once that was done, some folks finished covering the joists with the plywood floor, some insulated the crawlspace walls, some put together the headers, some built ladders for the roof overhangs and others made sure that tools and nails were readily available. Everyone had a place in the process.
Today's work even included some wildlife rescue. Since the ground is so wet and there are plenty of still pools of water, the Spring Peepers were out and plenty of them in the foundation area of the house. These are the tiny frogs with the very big voices so we thought it might be better to get them out of the foundation, so we did.
We were treated to some wonderful fried chicken for lunch thanks to the folks at Chesapeake Bank. Donna came out with Paula to deliver the feast. After lunch we continued with building the walls - our goal - to raise them by the end of the day! And Voila!
The evening was another wonderful meal of BBQ = pulled pork sandwiches, homemade baked beans, coleslaw and applesauce. There were plenty of sweets to complete the meal. All prepared by the loving hands of congregants from Grace Episcopal Church. The youth had the opportunity to "hang" with some of the youth from the church. It is Elise's birthday today so we gave her a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday followed by a tossing of marshmallows - it was more like a pelting of marshmallows but Elise thought it was a great surprise (this was something that Amy, a friend of Elise's instigated).
Some of the words used to describe today were: Spring Peepers, "The Power of the Saw", Cat's Paw, Precision or Persuasion, "Getter' Done", There are no stupid questions.., inspiring, accomplishment.
Thanks for your letter Bob.
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