What's Next?

Don and Vicki...

"You've just finished two weeks at a Habitat for Humanity build. What's next?"

"We're going to Disneyworld"!

Habitat for Humanity, Dade City, FL - Part 5

Habitat for Humanity, Dade City, FL - Part 3

From this... we will make a house! Amazing isn't it?

Wednesday morning we're up and at 'em once again by 8:00 am. A quick devotion and we go over the updates for the day, etc. We head over to the build site and they bring the lumber that has been pre-marked, cut, etc. for the house. It's kind of like putting a puzzle together as everyone helps to unload the trailer!

We lay out the walls on the concrete and once that's done, we start nailing...a wall at a time! We actually put up the north and south wall in two parts because of the weight and size. I learned all kinds of things about constructing houses and can tell you the various names of the parts of a wall! Aren't you impressed? Once we had the first half of the wall done we set it up. We couldn't bolt it down tight because the concrete really hadn't had the time, with the rain and the weather, to set up properly. We braced it inside and continued on. We were able to get both halves of the north wall up.

Today another homeowner provided us with lunch. A soup that had pieces of corn on the cob and chicken in it. Lots of other stuff too, but I don't remember what it was! :-) It was very good! The home owners are all so appreciative of all that the members of Habitat do for them.

Valentine's Day!

Had a nice surprise this afternoon when our friends, Rick & Joanne Stone showed up at the Dade City Habitat for Humanity Build that we are at. They were just in time to see Don fall off the back of a truck Lew was driving! Lew thought that Don was trying to pull a fast one on him, Don thought that Lew was trying to knock him off the back. Guess you learn that you shouldn't be riding on the tail gate of a truck! Good thing was that he landed on grass, Lew was only going about 15 mph and the other is that Don wasn't hurt. He may be a litte sore tomorrow though!

Enjoyed some time to relax and catch up for the past few days and then we all headed out for dinner. It is Valentine's Day after all! We drove to Zephyhills and had dinner at Chilis. We did have a wait of over an hour, which Don handled well!

We were able to show off the house that we are working on and the steps, gate and hand-rail that Don & Lew have been working on the past few days at the Train Depot which is where the office is for East Pasco County Habitat for Humanity! I'm going to keep this short and hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to share some of my pictures of our "build"!

Habitat for Humanity, Dade City, FL - Part 2

Tuesday morning...up again at 8:00. The concrete is supposed to arrive around 9:00 am for the foundation. Don is working on the steps at the train depot. I went over to the build site to take pictures and have kind of been dubbed as "the official photographer"! The concrete arrives - almost 1-1/2 hours late and the fun begins! The foundation takes 3 loads of concrete and the guys work quickly to get it into all the nooks and crannys (sounds kind of like an english muffin...doesn't it?) They get the foundation poured and the slab for the shed when it starts to rain. They delayed pouring the concrete the day before because of the threat of rain and no rain...today there is no call for rain and guess what!

We quickly start to cover what we can with plastic which means that some of the concrete had to be walked on! Wet cement means large footprints that sink into the cement. The guys backtracked through their footprints and smoothed them over! Since it was raining, nothing more that I could do. I drove over to the train depot to check on the progress of the steps and found Don and Rick (Lew was sick and wasn't there) under the overhang still working. The steps, are quickly becoming the "steps from hell"!

Habitat for Humanity, Dade City, FL

Some of you may know that we are currently in Dade City, FL where we are part of the East Pasco Habitat for Humanity Build Team. We are working on House #43! We arrived here on Sunday with our friends, Dottie & Lew Anderson who actually "talked us into" this! We were also supposed to be joined by Marie & Dave Ostrander (other Monaco friends of ours) but Dave was diagnosed with cancer about a month ago and is currently undergoing treatment in Dallas. We were met by our Team Leader, Barri Amor and quickly got settled in. We have electric, water and even sewer! There are 9 members from FMCA Habitat for Humanity and 7 Habitat for Humanity RV Caravaners (FMCA is an organization strictly for motorhomes, hence the RV Caravaners).

On Sunday evening we had a "get acquainted" meeting with our team so that we could meet everyone and hear where they were from, how many builds they had done, etc. Don and I are the only "first timers". We found out that our "house" has been beset with problems, failing the soil compaction test, weather, etc. In fact, the foundation hadn't even been poured yet! We also were told how the build normally takes place and basically what we could expect. We "work" from 8:00 - 2:30 or 3:00 with a break at 10:00 am and lunch at 12:00. Different people and groups feed us lunch each day. We "work" Mon - Sat. with Sunday off (usually). At 8:00 am we meet, get a brief synopsis of the day, are told about any changes, etc. and have a daily devotion. Gather our tools and materials and off we go! We also go over work safety and then our meeting was over! Heavy hors devours are the norm and this night was no exception!

Monday morning dawns bright and clear. The biggest problem was there was no work since the foundation hadn't been poured yet. The concrete that is supposed to be delivered later this afternoon has been postponed because of the possibility of rain. It will be delivered on Tuesday. Odd jobs were handed out around the build site, a previous house, loading supplies, steps at the HfH office (a historical train depot) and a few others. It was also "suggested" that some of us may like to go to Webster to see the Flea Market there, which is only open on Monday! We were asked to be back by noon, though, since a local church was bringing us lunch. Eight of us headed off to Webster, Lew started off helping to load lumber on the trailer, and Don joined up with another guy to build the steps at the train depot (that's a whole other story)! Webster is about 1/2 hour away but it has to be the biggest flea market I've ever seen! It stretches forever and has booths here there and everywhere! Didn't purchase too much. Dottie and I started off going down rows of produce. We decided to hit that area on our way back, but ended up running out of time and only had the chance to quickly purchase a thing or two when we were leaving! I'm sure there were lots of great bargains, but in a motorhome you only have so much room and when that gets filled, well...you get the picture! :-) Got back in time for lunch and I can't remember what we ended up doing after that! After time to get cleaned up, we met around 5:00 for a brief meeting and heavy hors devours! Hey, I could get used to this...after heavy hors devours, you don't need to cook dinner! :-)