In the morning Linda took some of the group running and I got my breakfast and tossed the ball for Kobi. Kobi is living the life; he is the center of attention and has the run of the place. One of the top dog church women owns a Golden and she gave him permission to be in the church. He has his nose in everything and the students love him.
At 8:45 am we were all loaded in the van except two. I had just jumped out to kick butt when they ran out of the church and climbed in. We drove to the work site where we joined about twelve other volunteers, a much bigger group then were present in the rain yesterday.
The weather was still not great. It changed every five minutes from wind to snow and wind, to rain, and even sometimes SUN! We gathered and they gave a devotional. Today’s message talked about stopping to help others in need, it was good and very appropriate.
Habitat, being volunteer based, and depending a great deal on donations from local businesses, is sometimes at the mercy of many factors. Today we were stalled by the truss delivery and boom truck being delayed. We were told it would arrive somewhere between 9 am and 11 am. The truck arrived at 11:45 am. During this lag time we stood around and waited while the project manager, Larry, and the construction manager, Alex, heatedly discussed the delay and the way the trusses would be set. It got a bit loud, but they had moved away from the crowd so most of our group was not aware of what was happening. Both Linda and I felt bad for both Alex and Larry, they are both such nice guys and we could see that they didn’t want their disagreement to affect everyone who was here to volunteer.
After several minutes things got worked out and folks started getting the area ready for the trusses to be lifted to the top of the walls. When the truss lift arrived, coincidentally so did the food. A fellow named Pete arrived with our lunch. We were building the house for him and his family so he had brought the group of volunteer’s hamburgers and hotdogs. Everyone fell in line and grabbed lunch while Alex and the elk shirt man, ran around and helped place the trusses up on the walls. Pete was very excited and was very appreciative of our group helping to build his future home. We were glad that we got a chance to meet and chat with a future owner.
This took about 45 minutes and once the trusses were lifted and the food was gone, we swarmed the place and started setting the trusses. Most of the technical guidance came from the Elk shirt guy, with head nods from Alex. Elk shirt guy was a climbing phenom. He also could sure use a hammer. Each nail he smacked took three hits and a tap, where as all of us hit the nail about 20 times, while also hitting the 2X6 at least ten times too.
By the end of the day we had completed setting the trusses on one half of the duplex. The goal was to get that half finished so that we could work on the exterior siding on Thursday. I think everyone did a good job, I know they wanted to have a bit more direction, but we talked about that later and they understood all the things that interfered and slowed progress down.
Linda and I fixed a pasta dinner with the help of a few so the students. The meal was well received and most of it got eaten. I went to the club and showered and when I returned the students were back to playing games and laughing. Linda and I said good night and crashed in our bed. Something about answering questions, building houses and keeping track of 10 students tends to tire you out.
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