Monday was supposed to be less than half a day of work, with everyone cleaning up the very last details on all the projects on the site. I wandered about helping various people with the ends of all their projects. One was fixing the fact that one of the beams had been set a fraction of an inch too low compared to all the joists, so we had to nail a little bit of wood to the bottom of every joist. Someone had ripped a 2 by into equally thick shims, and there was a team of two trying to put them up on everything. Jenny had a methodology that included presetting all the nails, so I did that while she and Sue's husband, Jim, nailed them over their heads.
The artists came back and added a swallow to the painting, finishing it. I was so happy to see this, as it was obvious that the artists had been given the reason why the houses were being built.
At about 11:30, when the van was leaving for the excursions, Sue still had the last bit of her painting to do, so she asked me to finish it. She was so doubtful that I'd want to, but I reassured her and went up and happily slapped paint on the way Gary (the guy who used to build a lot of house and who had taught Jet how to paint) taught me. None of this wiping extra paint off your brush nonsense, it's slow and you need as much paint on it as fast as possible... laughs. It was fun to get back into that.
At lunchtime, John really wanted to show Frank the sign that Amy and I had been working on. I'd done the sketch of the letters, and Amy had found some black spray paint. John found a chunk of cardboard, so Amy and I spray painted it in the yard by the cafeteria. Frank had come to the kitchen to get ingredients for the dessert for Monday night. And he came out to ask, "What are you two up to? Learnin' how to tag?"
After lunch, Walt and John got me into the fourth house and we put up joists. The two of them marked off where all the joists had to go, and marked where the brackets all had to go along the side boards. It was exact work, and they redid it until it was right.
I don't really have to do the two hit trick anymore. I can just put my hand nearly to the end of the handle of the hammer and get it to hit the nail head with good power. And I got a lot of practice in that afternoon. laughs Each bracket needed at least two nails to set the first side. We then lifted each two by six into place, and then I fastened the two nails on the other side, along with another pair on each side that went in at an angle. Walt worked twice as fast as I did, but he has even more practice.
Then John and Rob got to put the plywood up on the loft floor. Last year, John got to do the same job and was a lot more tentative about stepping on nothing but the joists. This year, he was up and easily found his balance and confidence, and the two of them went at it at speed. Later, Rob said that he really enjoyed working with John at speed, that it was pretty awesome watching John work without having to pause for others to catch up.
So there's the front closet, the bathroom and living area entries and doorways to frame, the loft closet still to do, and then the plumbing before the fourth house is ready for dry wall.
We cleaned up and met up at 5 by the campfire and got to drink some of the good array of alcohol that Frank had assembled, and got to just talk for a while. There was some envy for the bevy of Hawaiian shirts, so John lent out some of his clean extras.
Frank served a beautiful almond peach cake to us all, taking some of the Palisade peaches earlier in the week and using the almond flour that Walt had brought in the spring to make a delicious, moist, not too sweet cake filled with peach chunks. It was a wonderful end to the meal.
At lunch, when John and I went to get gas, we'd also dropped by the grocery store and bought four bags of cheap white flour. I also bought one bag of South Dakota whole wheat to eat. The three of us brough the four bags of flour out to the land between the four houses and John had paced things out in the daylight and marked the center of the circle.
Karina said that when he saw Lou at the hotel, the first thing George said was to enthuse about the Medicine Wheel. John told him that it took four bags of flour to do, and we may see it next year.
It's not a comfortable job to do, as you have to swing a hammer up. You can't really use the weight of the head with gravity to really nail, and beginner hammer users always have a tendency to do little hits without being able to really get it in well because they lack the confidence to hit it harder. So I had a little trick, of hitting it lightly once and then following quickly with a harder hit. Setting the second hit up that way gives most people a little more confidence to just hit harder.
Winnie joined us, and with that trick she and Jenny started hitting a lot harder as they could see the progress of it more quickly. I cheerfully set up as many shims as they needed, running them and extra nails back and forth and it was done pretty quickly.
Another artist who had done some of the art that was in the rooms we were living in came back and negotiated another try at the art on the houses. He didn't have any paints, and George was gracious enough to give him the money to buy the paints, the guy had been given the contract for the art last year, and was paid some of the money, but never showed up to do the art. So George was giving him a second chance. I was so impressed by that!
And in the middle of me doing it, Dan wandered up. He and Marilyn are in their 80's and were cheerfully painting anything that didn't need a ladder. She had a bad ankle, so was just lying on the ground, doing excellent work on the lowest bits. Dan is 6 foot 10 inches tall, so could reach well higher than all of us could without a ladder. So he was doing the mid and higher work that didn't need a ladder. Sue had been doing what he couldn't reach. Dan looked up at me and said dryly, "Demoted, huh?"
I laughed. "No. Not at all. I love doing this, too. Painting is important for making it look like someone cared about how it all went together." Dan grinned at me. When John wandered by and pointed out a bit I'd missed, Dan watched as I slathered on a good chunk and then he hummed happily, "Goooood feathering." As I feathered all the edges in around the patch. I suspect he and Marilyn had done quite a lot of house painting in their lives as well, and it was good to have my technique appreciated by someone who would know. They'd even kept their brushes in the freezer overnight, rather than washing them, so that the brushes and the paint would be find the next day! I learn something every time I work.
I'd grinned at him and said, "I always wanted to know how to do that." And I have... I love graffiti calligraphy, and even have a book coming to me from a different library from the Denver library system on that particular art. But that's besides the point.
Amy took the whole thing into the apartment, while I wandered into the dining room after someone who needed to use the restroom. The guy announced himself, so I slipped in behind, and silently grabbed the bundle of Christmas lights that were on the salad bar, and walked out the way I always walked, no faster and certainly not looking all around me. laughs Amy called me devious and she's not wrong. But I bought the lights to the apartment and had left her, yesterday, to put them all in. You see the result over Frank and Denise, who is his partner in the kitchen.
So before lunch time, John asked Frank to come out of the kitchen, and to just stop right at the door. With the lights off, the sign just looks like a black board. I plugged it in right then, and Frank took a moment to realize what he was seeing, and then got this huge grin on his face. Nearly as big as the one when he tested the dishwasher after Walt cleaned out the drain for his dishwasher and got it to work for the first time in quite some time.
Crazy ideas.
Then Walt and I got to work hand nailing one side of each bracket into the wall. I'm much better at nailing now than I used to be. Yes, my right hand was the one that had been hurting a lot from the mouse work from gaming... but the weight work of using all the caulk guns, the drivers, and hammer can only help with the overall endurance of my musculature.
It was funny at one point Walt asked, deadpan, "Are we having fun, yet?"
I answered, "No." I paused for a moment. "But this is doable."
He laughed.
There are so many reasons I love this family. And at the end, he said, "The best part about the sound of hammers is when it ends." And we high fived.
Which, yes, says something about Rob's capacities as well, as he could easily help John with everything that had to be done. The two of them did nearly all the plywood, leaving maybe half an hour's worth of work.
It was a pretty extraordinary week. We'd come knowing that we wouldn't be able to get the roof up until Friday because of the wind and now we had the loft complete in Four. All the siding that needed to get put on all the houses was coming Wednesday, for the next crew to install along with the remaining battens. This crew had installed the new patio and all the steps up and down all the patios, and a lot of finishing painting and caulking had been done.
For those who don't know, this was supposed to be us as the YMCA of the Village People video. Winnie thought it was hilarious. And I agree.
Everyone gathered and then Frank threw his usual amazing Special dinner with grilled steak, chicken, asparagus, and roasted vegetables and his usual amazing salad bar. Presentations were made, and everyone got to talk a bit. Karina got to show her really thought through video, and Jenny made presentations of awards for everyone that were really on point and funny and thoughtful about what made each person entirely unique. I loved her work on that, including giving John the "Red and Green" award for always getting it built and making everyone laugh along the way. I loved that so much.
It all went pretty late. We all talked through what we'd gotten out of the week. Sue was really touched by how she had been treated all week, as she'd been very uncertain about coming because she wasn't skilled or experienced, and she'd loved everything she got to do and felt the cultural aspect of the excursions had been so important. She had felt both challenged to do things she'd never done before and she'd also been perfectly comfortable saying she didn't feel comfortable doing certain things and that it was good and fine that she didn't. I was so glad.
Everyone talked more, said their good-byes when the van had to leave for the hotel as we weren't going to see them in the morning. I was gratified at all the hugs and heartfelt goodbyes by various folks that I hadn't really realized had even seen me. Each group is different, and with this one there were definitely groups of people that really knew each other and mostly only worked with those that they knew. The spring one had mixed everyone up really well, but some of that was because at the beginning of everything there hadn't been enough jobs figured out, yet. And the one last year had been incredible in that I'd actually gotten to know everyone I hadn't known pretty well.
But it was fun getting "The Swiss Army Knife" award from Jenny as I'd done my best to work with as many groups as I could, to fill in where one more hand was needed, and she's said that I'd probably done more different jobs than anyone else and I'd done them well. So I guess folks recognized that I'd done what I could to support all of them.
We had a campfire again, so I didn't write my blog either. John and I thought a bit about staying an extra day, and Andy, the CEO of this Y and Amber, his wife and counselor at the local school, even invited us to use their guest room as there wouldn't be room in the Y's apartments. And we said we'd sleep on it. After George went to bed, Amy, Karina, and Cathie were all who were left with John and I and only Amy accepted the invitation to do one more crazy thing.
Then he freehanded the outside circle, adding the cross pieces when he thought about it from the inside out, and I did the inside circle to make the Medicine Wheel that George talked about at every orientation on the first Tuesday of every week.
This morning, John and I both got up before 7, and were out and about and had breakfast with Amy and Karina and got to hug and say good-bye to them and to Dan and Marilyn. But while George was waiting on this passengers, John went up to him and asked, "Have you been to the site yet?"
"Uhm... no," answered George, "Why?"
"I heard noises last night."
"Noises?" George started looking concerned.
"Yeah, noises. I really think you need to check it out."
George went quickly, and after a while, he came back actually smiling, "That is fantastic, John."
Winnie was fantastic and took a picture from the upper window of one of the houses as George did the orientation for next week's group.
John and I decided that staying this one day wouldn't really make much of a difference as there was very little work to do, and to really do the transition transfer took a couple of days, the way Hence and David took two extra days with us; and I really hurt, especially my left shoulder for various reasons, so we left at about 9:30. We dropped by the offices to tell Andy that we were going, and then we made the drive pretty much straight down, taking turns. I slept during John's turn, and we got home at about 6 pm. We hit Costco for gas and food, dropped all the fresh stuff at home, and then took Joules to Santiago's and shared an Indian Taco with carnitas and beans and two sides of mild and hot green chili and really felt at home. Then we went home, unpacked nearly everything, and I got online to talk with the boys for a bit while they played Boomerang Fu before heading off to write this.
I'm so grateful I'm going to sleep in my bed tonight. The cold is mostly done. I'm just coughing now, and my nose has completely cleared. I ache, but I hope that will pass while I don't think the memories ever will.
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