Men At Work

The past week has seen some progress on our house addition.

On Monday we woke to a lovely snowfall. Combined with several inches of rain, our yard was a soggy sponge.

But like our usual March snowfalls, this one was mostly gone by the next day. On Tuesday the whole crew came out. Ed took the day off work, my construction brothers, their employee, plus my farming brother and my dad all came to help lay the block for the foundation.

If you know my family, you know that there was lots of fun in the midst of working.

The men were great at allowing the children to "help". I didn't even try to have school!

This week was rather crazy. Besides keeping up with his normal job, Ed was attempting to help with the house. To top it off, we were having a week of revival services at our church. It was an exhausting week, but a very good one. Our evangelist has a passion for God and we thoroughly enjoyed the services. It is easier for me to show pictures of our building projects than to put into words the work the Lord did in my heart this week. Hopefully, by the grace of God, my heart change will be far more lasting than these walls.

In a crazy coincidence, the minister for our revival services is the same man who taught my brothers much about  construction. One of the advantages of our church's way of calling a minister from amongst the congregation in contrast with a salaried career pastor is the ability to watch your ministers live out their faith and ministry in their every day life and occupation. The fact that my brothers came to hear John preach this week is a testimony to the impact he has had on their lives.


Back to the building project...by the end of the day, the walls were up and ready for inspection.

On Wednesday, the inspection passed and one of my brothers came to help Ed back fill. This was crazy since the rain had turned the clay turned to a slimy soup. Trying to pack this stuff down was nearly impossible. The skid loader was stuck  many times.

I thought they'd never get it done, but they did, despite the fact that it began raining again. I couldn't believe how neat the foundation looked now covered in stone and leveled.

As expected, operating machinery on soft grass is having an effect. The pictures really can't show how bad it looks. Imagine a smeary mud lot and you might be close.

It probably sounds like I'm complaining. But really I'm just stating the facts. I told Ed from the beginning that I'm okay with having a ton of landscape and grass seeding to do when they are finished. After last year's drought, I hope to never ever complain about rain again.

And rain we had. We don't have a rain gauge up but it is no exaggeration to say that we received several more inches on Thursday.

On Saturday, Ed's brother and nephew helped finish a few more block and lay down the insulation. We plan to have radiate heat in a concrete slab floor, so they placed some of the tubing.

Next up- pouring the concrete floor. Hope the concrete truck doesn't get stuck!