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Moving Toward Buttoning Up

 Once the roof on the fourth house was up, there were a lot of things that started going into motion. Getting the windows and doors into the house, finishing the front porch, and planning all the framing for the loft and walls in the fourth house.

The other houses still needed work. Following the plumbing and having to move various walls, the floors had to be pulled up while they were doing the work and they all had to be re-lain, sometimes recut to follow the new contours of the rooms or enclosures. Both House Number 1 and 2 had had the flooring done in the spring for the whole loft and the bathroom, and a chunk of that flooring had been pulled up. There were a number of "final" coats of paint to be put up, more battens that could be secured where we had siding, seams to be caulked, and lots of screw holes to be filled.

So yesterday, and today, everyone scattered and did the things they could do. And in the midst of all the activity, a lady and guy showed up and did their paintings on the Western most house, while another tribe member petitioned to do another of the houses. He had done this mural in the dining hall of the YMCA itself; but this time he had been pretty flaky about doing another one, having a hard time securing a bank account that the Y could actually pay funds to in order to pay him for his efforts. But his color sense was excellent, and so he gets to do another one for a different one of the houses.

One of the big deals for yesterday was that everyone got their yellow YMCA of the Seven Council Fires t-shirts and we all lined up for a photo. They said, at the end of breakfast that the picture was going to be in half an hour, but in half an hour,. after I'd gotten everything done that I needed to do, I went out to the work site and found everyone scattering to their different jobs. Lysa and I, who had been in the apartment together, had looked at each other and shrugged. We totally thought we'd missed the shot.

But then, half an hour after THAT, they started rounding everyone up and George actually counted heads to make absolutely sure that everyone was there, and he got everyone in a shot.

That, of course, started everyone into a frenzy of getting pictures with each other. I particularly liked this shot of someone getting a shot of someone getting a shot... lol. It was fun, and a lot of the board members all posed together, and I was able to help them get a picture of them all on the job site, so they could go back to tell people how it had gone. Fund raising is a thing.

John got me to help him with the loft floor, and then after lunch, yesterday, got Winnie and I to help him with the lower floor, and it took a while because he was being dragged away to consult on other jobs. Winnie and I enjoyed the slow down as we were both tired from being on the roof crew the day before. Last night, as we were going to bed, he said that he'd be occupied, today, with the framing crew that was trying to get the fourth house framed before they closed it up next week, so he would leave the job to Winnie and I. I'd led one of the flooring crews in the spring, so I knew what to do and how to think about the cuts we needed to make. 

We enjoyed our sunset, dinner, and a presentation by George about the cultures situation here in Dupree and on the reservation. For quite some time, the county that held the Four Bands of the Cheyenne River Sioux was The Poorest in the nation. It's now up to the fifth or sixth poorest, but still down there. There are a great many consequences from that fact. One of which is the lack of housing adequate and affordable for a county with 70% and sometimes higher unemployment. There are some grim realities here on the Reservation. Ohani was also very frank about the fact that since YMCA has "Christian" in the name, it's looked on with a lot of suspicion by those who were raised in the boarding school era, that they see a lot of what the Y does as an erasure of their ways. The intentions might be good, but it's a whole lot of rich white people saying they know best for the tribe...

The evening campfire was very nice, and the folks in Faith stayed for a good long time to just talk, enjoy the warmth and companionship and talked for a good while. I stayed as I enjoy that time, but it made it a lot harder to write.

I also have a cold. Luckily, Winnie was the one who gave it to me, so I'm not worried about giving it back to her while we work together. I actually took a little while at lunch time to walk to the grocery store and get some zinc and some nasal decongestant to just stop my nose from running away from me and/or clogging my sinuses so badly.

The smoke from the fire hadn't really helped the situation, and I felt pretty awful this morning. But I think that that is about the worst it's gotten. Then again, Winnie said that Danny had had it for a couple of weeks before he even got here, and he's still coughing. I hope I recover sooner rather than later. Winnie, herself, looked a lot better today, and said that the decongestive nose spray was the best thing ever, so I'll try it tonight.

Today was good, as Winnie and I got to puzzle through, inspect all the torn up boards, and piece together all the floors. John was a sweetie and actually answered every question we had, and we got everything done both up in the loft and down in the living area and the bathroom, even with all the new piecing that had to be done because of the plumbing. 

We were both super happy we could do it, and it was nice to talk things through with her and to have it be really simple and easy to correct each other when something was wrong and not have it be any problem.

So between us we were able to completely button up two of the houses to be ready for drywall in the winter. They're going to contract the drywall with a local contractor, hopefully. They really want to pay someone local, and I'll admit that it's one of the jobs that I'm least suited to do. It's really an art. I can set screws into dry wall with the best; but tape and mud are an art form that I can't do. Especially on vaulted ceilings so high in the air. 

They got the windows into the fourth house! The telehandler was just busy as a bee, all day. The roof on the patio was also put in by Danny and his guys, and it is solid. The tin roof will be put on top of everything by contractors. The siding is coming on Wednesday of next week, so the big job of the next crew will be to get it all up on the third and fourth houses. 

The framing was in progress for the fourth house, and we got a visit from the architects who made the plans for the houses. The first thing one of them said to me while Winnie and I were doing the loft flooring was, "There HAS to be a door to the water heater! You can't access the water heater from the closet!" And I said, "Uhm... you need to talk to George, John, and Walt."  She got over it.  There actually aren't housing codes here, it's both an issue and something of a blessing at times, as some code doesn't make any sense in this size a house.

And the architects (in the back row of this picture) were folks who had spent their summers here with a friend who lived out on the plains. So they had connections. They and the framers discussed and worked out some support issues for the ladder up to the loft, which was really useful. So it was great they came on sight to see what was going on. The two on the right were the architects and the third was the lead architect's mom. I loved that she had come out to see her child's work.

We ended the working day on the porch of the fourth house, the last porch and stairs to be built. Winnie and Danny had a huge crate of snacks they brought out each night, and we'd all sit around and eat them and drink beers, near beers, and seltzers out of the cooler, and banter under dinner was done. Cathie, Walt, John, and I are going to do breakfast in the morning, and Amy and I did a Secret Project during the afternoon. That'll get unveiled tomorrow for the Special Dinner that Frank is making us. He's already announced a dessert of an almond-peach cake, from what we brought. I'm looking forward to that.

Dinner was enchiladas, reheated from that Frank made, and now folks are around the campfire. I think I'll use my decongestant, get on a coat, and join them. Hope you all have a good night. 







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