Caulking, Battens, and Ohani

I spent most of the morning caulking.

I'm not entirely sure how to convey the depth of history that goes underneath that statement. Let's start with the fact that in a great many volunteer construction projects, that caulking is usually given to the girl with the least experience who just says okay when someone, usually male, asks her to please do the caulking. It's oddly considered by many volunteers as "make work". It's something that's not nearly as fun or fulfilling as using power tools, putting up a wall, building actual framing for rooms, or nearly anything. It's the low man on the totem pole work.  And not a lot of people jump up to do it.

Then, in Biloxi, while we were trying to reconstruct an electrician's house while he volunteered, in kind, I got into Gabriel's finishing crew. Gabriel's dad was a building inspector, and, for a few years, Gabriel had done professional finishing work, and the most laborious part of it was putting in all the door frames, and all the boards at the very bottom of all your walls, and getting the caulk in that top gap and painting that edging, and you wanted to do it perfect the first time to save yourself the hassle of going back and fixing it.

So in one week, I did nothing but caulk. I learned how to cut the exact point needed, had fingers that were constantly wrinkled from the wet cloths I was using to keep everything perfectly smooth. And with the two other ladies I was working with, we'd figured out the exact timing for getting the tape down, everything done, and the tape back up after the caulk had mostly set and before the paint had had a chance to dry.

It was exacting work. Perfectionist's work.

And whenever I pick up a caulking gun, I pick my perfectionism back up and away we go.

And this morning, I filled in all kinds of holes. I matched the grain on the faux wood grain on the plastic frames around the windows and murals. I matched the texture on the walls. I wiped up every last speck of caulk from the places that it shouldn't be, and I lived with my too large tip, which actually did a great job of filling in and smoothing over the holes from the too-large screw heads we'd put into some of the framing around the doors and windows and since they were going to see those all the time, it was a good idea to fill them in before the last coat of paint, so they'd just disappear.

I was mildly mad that I was having to do it, but then I realized that if I didn't do it, someone else who didn't have all my experience would cheerfully "try" and then I'd be so sad. Everyone else was digging postholes for the porches, doing more plumbing, getting stuff fixed and putting up battens on the Hardie board, and doing yet more for the roof. All great progress!

And then three different people, George, who is in charge of everything, David, and I think maybe Lou? Or someone who wasn't related to the folks I knew, all came up and complimented me on the work. George said that he's seen the divots left on one of the walls by a previous crew and he'd been thinking that those needed fixing, but hadn't gotten around to organizing it or even verbalizing it and he was so grateful that I was just doing it.

That was really nice.

And when it all got as done as I could do it, I put it all down, had some lunch and then spent the afternoon doing battens over the Hardie board with John and Sue. Sue had done some handiwork and was raring to go, so I let her do all the high stuff she actually wanted to do. I just ran stuff back and forth and made sure things were measured or held in place or whatever John said needed to get done. That was fun, as it was pretty methodical work. The battens were strips cut from concrete, i.e. Hardie board, that were then screwed over all the seams in the siding (which was also Hardie board). This was to protect the house and seal all the seams and so it would all look good. The shadows on the wall created by the battens in the evening were just beautiful. The house on the left in the picture is a great example of how they just make the whole thing look better.

By the end of the afternoon, Sue was getting tired, and we added Karina, who liked to do all the cutting, so we ended up with a crew of four, getting them up. I ended up doing a lot of high work, as I could really get my weight behind the driver to get the screws into the top. It takes practice and some real confidence that the ladder is super stable when set up correctly. That's not a thing that's learned easily.

We had a two ladder system for the really long battens, as well, and John would do a lot of the top stuff, I'd do the middle stuff, and then we'd move it all and do it again, as we were putting them on about every 9 and 1/2 inches. That was a lot of good work.

I was having to pay a lot of attention to my right leg and how I was positioning it as I hadn't done a good job of that yesterday, and it had hurt quite a lot. I did better today. My right forearm was really aware that I'd done a LOT of squeezing with it, and it was funny to realize that I could tell that it was muscle pain and not tendon issues. That was a really good step in the right direction, but I'm probably going to ice tonight.

After dinner, though, we got a treat, which was a visit from Ohani, who has visited with us in the spring. She's a 23 year old Lakota woman, who was the Miss Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation from 2019 through 2022, and whom we'd met when she wasn't too sure what she was going to do next other than she really wanted to keep spreading her love for the Lakota traditions. 

Now she's a teacher of Lakota, the advanced classes, at the local school here. She's so happy and so much more assured, and she's also singing with a big traveling Powwow, and here she was happy to show us some of her skills. Lovely lady and I wish her every good thing going forward.