johnandlindabraun.blogspot.com

Goodbye T-Bird and Report of Cowboy Church/Country Gospel Jamboree

2011-07-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

Despite rain, rain and more rain, we consider the Cowboy Church and Country Gospel Jamboree hosted by our Mennonite Church to be a great success. Bless you, all who attended! Our “Ultimate Christian Cowboy”, Larry Krause, did a wonderful job as host musician and we did at least get to enjoy some of the music in the sun on the lawn in the early part of the afternoon. The barn was pretty well full for the beautiful church service, and although we could see the rain coming down outside with the doors open out behind the preacher, we were warm and dry inside. “As I Went Down to the River to Pray” was one of the music choices sung by our church’s quartet, and it was a wonderful selection having regard to the Red River flowing right by behind the barn!

The children’s message resembled a Sunday School lesson and included the children’s song “The Wise Man Built His House upon a Rock”, which was the sermon content for the day. Although our pastor was not exactly comfortable in his “cowboy preacher” role, his message was very meaningful. We sang old songs with Larry leading, and before we knew it, it was time for lunch to be served. Pastor Ryan indicated the offering(s) and proceeds from dinner would be in aid of Mennonite Disaster Services to assist in funding the various projects underway due to disasters. There was a brief presentation by Ed Buhler from Aberdeen on behalf of Mennonite Disaster Service as to why donations are required.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the pulled pork dinner with beans and coleslaw, dessert and coffee. Good thing the food was readied in a large coverall building, as the rain was really coming down and people had to make the trip across the wet grass from the barn to the food, and then back to the barn to eat it.

When the jamboree music started at 2:00 p.m., the rain had quit, and the decision was made to begin the music outdoors. The lawn chairs came out and it was nice and sunny for a while, but then the clouds started threatening again, and after a couple of sets, they moved the equipment inside – a good decision, as it started pouring and we were all happy to be in out of the rain.

The rest of the program was inside and it was over by 5 o’clock. As cotton candy does not fare well in damp circumstances, we didn’t even start up the machine. A few ice cream cones were enjoyed while the folks were outside, but not nearly as many as we had hoped...

I felt moved to share with those in attendance, especially those who are regular readers of my weekly ramblings, that our 1962 T-Bird, the subject of a recent article, was stolen from our garage in the early mornings hours last Friday. It appeared to have been a carefully planned crime and our gorgeous car is probably long gone. Just a reminder that the things we have can disappear in a blink! I can retain my sanity by realizing there are much worse things that could happen, but it is still difficult to realize there are low-life people who could do such a thing! Our son got word of the theft onto Facebook immediately and we put out the word to as many friends and car acquaintances as possible, but the car has not been sighted. The RCMP came immediately, but there is probably not much they can do either…

June 20, 2011 Living Waters Gospel Jamboree

2011-07-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

Getting back-logged again

2011-07-08T12:59:00.001-07:00

It appears I have been very lazy in putting my articles on our blog. Looks like I missed the one about our dear friends, Len and Nettie, so I'm going to put it on now:

We met Len and Nettie of Southern Manitoba, on our second tour of duty with MDS, at Johnson Bayou, Louisiana, in 2009. We immediately “bonded” and they have remained close friends ever since. As a matter of fact, when they learned John was building a sun room onto the back of our house in 2009, they came and helped for a week putting up the roof. It was like our own little MDS project at home!!

In recent years, in addition to volunteering with the Senior RV Program with the actual rebuilding, Len and Nettie have also undertaken the responsibility of receiving, servicing and inventorying all of the MDS vehicles and tool trailers at the large storage facility at Columbus, Mississippi, when the projects close. More recently, they have also been needed to HAUL some of the tool trailers and office trailers from the projects to the storage facility. It’s a good thing they enjoy traveling, as they put on a tremendous amount of miles in one season.

When we learned of the horrific tornadoes which ripped through Alabama, Mississippi and the other states recently, we were wondering whether Len and Nettie were still down there finishing up. A quick e-mail the day after the news of the tornadoes brought the following response: “We are in the midst of things down here and our guardian Angels will be getting overtime pay for sure…We have been scrambling to get the vehicles and equipment serviced and ready to respond to the devastation around us. Macon is half hour south, Birmingham is ninety minutes east, Aberdeen is twenty minutes north. Tuscaloosa is forty five minutes south east. We have strong winds, some thunder and lightning, the power went off around 4 pm and came back on during the night We expect some people tonight yet [from MDS Head Office in Pennsylvania] and by early tomorrow they will be off to investigate as to how to respond to this crisis.” We were very relieved to hear that they were safe, as well as those they have come to know and love as family down there from their yearly visits.

The next day, the following e-mail arrived from them: “The stories are coming over local media, a kindergarten class wiped out ---a person driving home when the vehicle is lifted up and found maybe seven miles away with occupant dead…” We are hoping the survivor stories will also start to come through. When we see the pictures of these places around us we know that we have truly been protected.”

We are so thankful that our friends are safe, and almost wish we could be there to help them with the initial contact and clean-up. However, the word is they have many agencies and assistance from neighbouring areas that the tornadoes did not demolish, and if MDS requires volunteers, we would be notified. Our Senior RV crews are not involved in the initial clean-up, but rather are called in quite a time afterwards for rebuilding and repairing homes for those citizens who “fall through the cracks” – the elderly and the poor who don’t have insurance. The MDS field reps are already in the area of the new tornadoes assessing where its assistance will be best provided by regular MDS volunteers. They will be on the front lines dealing with those in crisis, hearing many of the stories of the people who have lost everything.

John is in the process of getting together a local MDS response team which will be ready for action in the event of a disaster in our area. It is in the beginning stages. He has met with members of the Ministerial Association to inform them of the plans and provided the with sign-up forms for volunteers. There are no special requirements for volunteers, just be ready, willing and able to assist should the need arise. The “purpose” is: (1) to assist citizens in Prince Albert area in cleaning up debris after an initial disaster and (2) to make temporary repairs that will help secure structures and prevent secondary damage after an initial disaster (intended to address wind damage to buildings and trees and flooding damage to buildings). We were astonished to hear about the severe wind damage that was done in Prince Albert area several years ago. It certainly refuted the idea that tornadoes do not occur in our area. The consensus is that sooner or later, there will be some natural disaster which will require such a team to be ready to go.

Please call John at 763-8180 in the event you would be willing to be a part of a local MDS response team.

Rhubarb Season

2011-05-31T20:07:00.000-07:00

My Article for the P.A. Shopper May 30, 2011

Rhubarb season is here. If I hadn’t discovered, last year, THE BEST RHUBARB CAKE RECIPE EVER, rhubarb season could have come and gone and I wouldn’t even have noticed. Two years ago, we dug up our patch of rhubarb, as it was encroaching on our raspberries, and there was rhubarb readily accessible at our son’s place if I ever needed any. We had company over to watch our Ken Davis video last weekend, and there was the opportunity to make my rhubarb cake! What I really like on this cake is the wonderful topping, which surprised me the first time I made it.

THE BEST RHUBARB CAKE EVER

Base: 2 cups flour
1 cup margarine
¼ cup icing sugar
½ tsp salt

Mix and press into 9 x 13 pan. Bake 12 minutes at 375 degrees.

Cover with 3-4 cups of thinly sliced rhubarb.
Sprinkle one small package of strawberry jello crystals over the rhubarb.

Topping: 1½ cup sugar
¾ cup flour
½ cup melted margarine

Spread on surface of rhubarb. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

ENJOY!

Our friends and relatives in southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been praying the rain would STOP. The water from the snow melt in our daughter’s yard in Pierson, Mb. had just all dried up (maybe a week or two), and she now says they need a boat to get around again!!! It was almost getting to the point we’d have to pray the rain would START here – our new patch of seeded grass required watering every day and then it only wet the very top of the ground. Our front lawn and garden were dry as a bone. We were very happy to get the nice rain on the weekend, even though it arrived precisely at the time my husband and son were resuming siding on the front of his house in town… I think they got three rows done before the sky opened up. What a difference new siding makes! It seemed that with the rain, our front lawn grew three inches over night!

We are in the process of looking for another cat. Our daughter’s beloved cat that she had gotten last October died in March, of natural causes, we believe. A friendly, adult, long-haired, “fixed” cat is what we are looking for. Our little Maltese dog is probably saying to herself “enough with the cats already”, but we really do love to have a cat in our home. The SPCA sees us looking frequently, but we have not brought anything home yet.

It is amazing how “life goes on” despite the devastation many people have suffered in Missouri, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and even Slave Lake, Alberta, and southern Manitoba and Quebec, in Canada! We have seen some of the rebuilding required down south with Mennonite Disaster Service, but nothing like what we have seen on T.V. and on our computer in the last week. The most revealing devastation on Facebook is a superimposed picture of part of Joplin, Missouri, before and after the tornado. And even thinking about how the people of Japan are surviving after their devastating earthquake and tsunami is unimaginable – we hear very little about how they are coping and getting their lives back on track. We can certainly count our blessings each and every day that things carry on in a “normal” fashion, and pray for those who are living in uncertainty, wondering if anything will ever be normal again.

Cruisin' weather - finally!

2011-05-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

What a little bit of sun can accomplish! It seems the leaves on the trees are exploding, as well as the dandelions! It feels like just last week the hostas in the flower garden at our church were mere little nubs, and this past Sunday, there were full-blown beautiful purple flowers on them. I hope the grass seed we planted this week shows the same progress…

Recently our daughter-in-law’s dishwasher required repairs. Her handy dandy dishwasher repairman passed along a helpful hint with respect to keeping her dishwasher clean. As we use well water in our home, and have experienced problems with spots and dishes not always being clean, I thought I would try the “cure”. I am happy to say that I am 100% satisfied, and am also happy to share this helpful hint with all of you. Citric acid crystals is the answer. You can buy it bulk at the healthful store and it is relatively inexpensive. You put your regular soap into the soap holder and the citric acid loose in the extra little dispenser in the door of the dishwasher. No extra rinse agent is required. My glasses come out spotless and the dishes clean…another problem solved!

The first car that John and I bought together (way back in 1969 in Calgary, Alberta) was a red 1961 Thunderbird convertible, for the grand sum of $900.00! How we loved driving that car – for a while anyway. After a while, it began breaking down all too regularly. We were both working, but that car seemed to nickel us to death. Everything was power – the top, the steering, the brakes, the trunk and the windows. We could pretty well count on it breaking down any time we took it on a trip, and finally it was necessary to park it, as repairs were too costly. Eventually we sold it to a friend for $250.00, as we were moving and it had to be removed from the driveway.

Fast forward to 1989 – no longer on such a tight budget and we were looking for a classic car to drive as members of the Klassic Kruizers Kar Klub. We found an awesome 1963 red T-Bird in Nipawin and made it ours. It was not a convertible, but we remembered the hassle with the power top, and with children, having a convertible did not seem appropriate. During our time with the car club, we enjoyed many cruises and car shows and the friendship of many car enthusiasts.

Unfortunately, over the years, the frame rails on the ’63 rusted out badly and John did not feel it was safe to drive. He was able to find a 1962 T-Bird, originally an Arizona car, which had an excellent body. He purchased it to use the body and transfer all of the good usable parts from the old Bird (motor, transmission, etc.) into the ’62. For John, this was a tremendous undertaking in itself, without the interruption of work by a heart attack and by-pass surgery which intervened. He managed to get the body painted red and then the poor Bird sat in pieces for several years until the will and the way came together, in 2002. Over the last few years, we have driven it occasionally over the summer. However, this year, we figured it would be better for the car to actually DRIVE it often… first thing to need attention when we got it on the road was the brakes.

Then when we went to do a wheel alignment, it was discovered an outer tie rod end is required before the wheels can be aligned properly. With a quick phone call to Larry’s Thunderbird in California, the part was ordered and should be here next week. Then that big puddle of engine oil on the floor of the garage needed looking into – the rear main seal in the engine is leaking. As the vehicle sits, seals and gaskets dry out. Try to find someone in this day and age who has the expertise to work on a classic vehicle like this one!? We managed to find one at Walter’s Service. He is as excited to work on it as we were to find someone qualified. The young fellow who was to drive it into the garage to be put up on the hoist had never seen slide-away steering, and was in awe of how to get the steering column to slide back. By the time this is published, the main seal will be replaced. Hopefully it will be back on the road by the middle of June and gas prices will go down so we aren’t grumbling about that every time we go for a drive! Honk when you see us go by!

TIME ON OUR HANDS

2011-05-30T13:57:00.000-07:00

Since returning home, I find myself spending increasingly more time at my computer. Unfortunately, it is not for anything “productive”, but mostly for entertainment. I had signed up for Facebook some time ago and initially, upon viewing the unacceptable photo that our teenage granddaughter in B.C. had put on her Facebook page, decided this was not for me. That was about three years ago, and since then, her choice of photo has improved, and I have found that many of our MDS friends have signed up. Following the postings is sometimes quite interesting, but sometimes makes me just shake my head! To see the postings of friends of friends of friends is mind-boggling. It is like a giant pyramid encompassing thousands of friends.

More recently, I have discovered some Facebook games – Slotmania and Tri Peaks Solitaire are my two favorites. Some friends and relatives are trying their hand at farming, waitressing, building a city, creating an aquarium, or playing T.V. games like Wheel of Fortune, The Price is Right and Family Feud, on Facebook. All in all, it can be very time-consuming and enjoyable, and you can even watch T.V. while you are on the computer… I must confess, at the same time, to feeling guilty about wasting all that valuable time!!! Maybe when the weather improves I can get “into” my gardening instead.

And speaking of television, the new OWN Network (Oprah Winfrey) seems to have some pretty good programs to my taste… It’s always a battle of the channels. At our house, as in most, “the man” usually has control of the channel changer. We are not interested in many reality shows, but have been following Dancing With the Stars. It appears to make a difference when a wrestler is dancing… Chris Jericho was great – too bad he didn’t make it into the top 5. Super Nanny, Undercover Boss, Heartland (Canadian show, no less!), and the new show, Mike and Molly are on my list of favorites. Not so much for the man in our household though. He prefers the History Channel and the Discovery Channel with Ice Pilots, American Pickers, Judge Judy and The First 48. One of our old friends had told us in the past that her second husband had always (only) watched all the cop and crime shows. and that should have been a sign to her that he suffered from severe depression. In rethinking the matter, I believe it just showed signs that he was A MAN!!

Every month, receiving our Star Choice bill is a traumatic time – kind of like complaining about gas prices. When we started out, our bills were around $30 for the minimum package. Now it’s over $60 for the same thing, and it seems that every month it’s up a dollar or two. John keeps threatening to change to some other provider, but Sask Tel Max is not available in our area and there seems to be no better alternative. Whatever we end up with, it had better include my VERY favorite channel: Country Classics Music at 920! We usually listen to CJWW radio in the mornings, as we enjoy Rod and Dave, Vic’s coffee talk and the Boots and Salutes Show. Often we leave the radio on for the Moo Crew Garage Sale as well. But then when they play the “new country” music, it is simply too hard on the ears. I can honestly say I have never felt the need to turn off the Country Classics channel; it seems each song is better than the last!

Sister-in-law Rita has been in touch by phone often, and is doing well. You know the flooding in Brandon is really getting bad when she can’t get to Walmart to buy the new phone she needs!!! It is also beyond comprehension to see the flooding of the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee.

Our garage is getting some use these days. First, our van door had a 6 inch strip of rust along the bottom of one back door. With a replacement door, a coat of paint applied in the garage, and the unfamiliar task of putting the old window into the new door, thanks to my handy husband, we soon had a “new” door on the van. His next project is putting new brakes on our ’63 T-Bird so we can drive it this summer…

Sprng has sprung article

2011-05-17T17:51:00.000-07:00

Spring has Sprung!

After all the years of saying in spring “we have to burn off our mound” before the grass starts growing again, we finally got it done this spring on a cool overcast day. Mama was happy! After a little bit of revamping of our back yard, our garden is about ready for planting. I had envisioned a nice board walk from our lovely garden shed to the house, and that was the project for last Friday. It is beautiful! There is still way too much JUNK in the back yard, but what can I say – we are both “collectors”. And then there’s our son’s tent trailer back there as well… We’ll have to work at it a little bit at a time.

One of the things we have been enjoying tremendously since we returned home this spring is the home-made crabapple juice which we made last summer. We had tasted some our sister-in-law in Neuanlage had made when we visited there, and she asked if we wanted some crabapples, as they had more than they needed. I initially declined, saying we had made apple juice when we lived in B.C. and it was too much trouble to bother with. When she described how she made her delicious apple juice, it wasn’t anything like the process we used! All you do is wash and cut the crab apples in half. As she used to be a painter, she has access to paint straining bags and uses them instead of a cheesecloth bag. You put the strainer bag into a big crock or pail and fill it with the cut crab apples. Then you pour boiling water over them to the top of the apples and leave them sit. After 2 days, you pull the bag with apples out, allowing the juice to drain. For every 10 cups of juice you bring to a boil in a pot, you add one cup of sugar, and then put the boiling juice in hot sealable jars or bottles. For that little bit of work and only crabapples and sugar, the juice is every bit as good as bought apple juice, and better.

Last December, for John’s birthday, he had only one request for a birthday present: a Ken Davis CD. While we were down south, we had the occasion to watch one of our friend’s CD’s of this Christian comedian doing his thing. He is absolutely hilarious, without being strictly religious or off-color. It is just plain good comedy. I was able to order the “Under the Influence” CD for his birthday, and even after the half dozen times we have watched the CD with friends, the tears are just rolling down John’s eyes! The content is mostly family oriented and Ken has a great talent for expressions and telling a story. Although he lives in Tennessee, we learned that he has been on tour in Saskatchewan; that would have been before we knew he was someone we would travel miles to see if he was in the area. We recently saw a commercial on the Gaither program that Ken Davis was on the list of entertainment for one of their Caribbean cruises. Hey, that might be a good point in favour of going on a cruise!!

With Dancing with the Stars winding down, it is amazing to see how Kirstie Allie is hanging in there, and how much slimmer she looks compared to when she started! She has sure given the other much younger ladies with hour glass figures a run for their money… The pro dancers on the show are so very talented with the choreography they have to come up with every week!

A lot of words about nothing...

2011-05-14T19:49:00.000-07:00

We ran into my publisher at the A & W downtown in April and he said he hoped I would keep writing for the newspaper all summer. I had already decided that I would like to keep writing until I ran out of words. Could be interesting....

Here is my last article called: TIME ON OUR HANDS

Since returning home, I find myself spending increasingly more time at my computer. Unfortunately, it is not for anything “productive”, but mostly for entertainment. I had signed up for Facebook some time ago and initially, upon viewing the unacceptable photo that our teenage granddaughter in B.C. had put on her Facebook page, decided this was not for me. That was about three years ago, and since then, her choice of photo has improved, and I have found that many of our MDS friends have signed up. Following the postings is sometimes quite interesting, but sometimes makes me just shake my head! To see the postings of friends of friends of friends is mind-boggling. It is like a giant pyramid encompassing thousands of friends.

More recently, I have discovered some Facebook games – Slotmania and Tri Peaks Solitaire are my two favorites. Some friends and relatives are trying their hand at farming, waitressing, building a city, creating an aquarium, or playing T.V. games like Wheel of Fortune, The Price is Right and Family Feud, on Facebook. All in all, it can be very time-consuming and enjoyable, and you can even watch T.V. while you are on the computer… I must confess, at the same time, to feeling guilty about wasting all that valuable time!!! Maybe when the weather improves I can get “into” my gardening instead.

And speaking of television, the new OWN Network (Oprah Winfrey) seems to have some pretty good programs to my taste… It’s always a battle of the channels. At our house, as in most, “the man” usually has control of the channel changer. We are not interested in many reality shows, but have been following Dancing With the Stars. It appears to make a difference when a wrestler is dancing… Chris Jericho was great – too bad he didn’t make it into the top 5. Super Nanny, Undercover Boss, Heartland (Canadian show, no less!), and the new show, Mike and Molly are on my list of favorites. Not so much for the man in our household though. He prefers the History Channel and the Discovery Channel with Ice Pilots, American Pickers, Judge Judy and The First 48. One of our old friends had told us in the past that her second husband had always (only) watched all the cop and crime shows. and that should have been a sign to her that he suffered from severe depression. In rethinking the matter, I believe it just showed signs that he was A MAN!!

Every month, receiving our Star Choice bill is a traumatic time – kind of like complaining about gas prices. When we started out, our bills were around $30 for the minimum package. Now it’s over $60 for the same thing, and it seems that every month it’s up a dollar or two. John keeps threatening to change to some other provider, but Sask Tel Max is not available in our area and there seems to be no better alternative. Whatever we end up with, it had better include my VERY favorite channel: Country Classics Music at 920! We usually listen to CJWW radio in the mornings, as we enjoy Rod and Dave, Vic’s coffee talk and the Boots and Salutes Show. Often we leave the radio on for the Moo Crew Garage Sale as well. But then when they play the “new country” music, it is simply too hard on the ears. I can honestly say I have never felt the need to turn off the Country Classics channel; it seems each song is better than the last!

Sister-in-law Rita has been in touch by phone often, and is doing well. You know the flooding in Brandon is really getting bad when she can’t get to Walmart to buy the new phone she needs!!! It is also beyond comprehension to see the flooding of the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee.

Our garage is getting some use these days. First, our van door had a 6 inch strip of rust along the bottom of one back door. With a replacement door, a coat of paint applied in the garage, and the unfamiliar task of putting the old window into the new door, thanks to my handy husband, we soon had a “new” door on the van. His next project is putting new brakes on our ’63 T-Bird so we can drive it this summer…

More devastating tornadoes down south

2011-05-05T18:28:00.000-07:00

We met Len and Nettie Hiebert of Grunthal, Manitoba, on our second tour of duty with MDS, at Johnson Bayou, Louisiana, in 2009. We immediately “bonded” and they have remained close friends ever since. As a matter of fact, when they learned John was building a sun room onto the back of our house in 2009, they came and helped for a week putting up the roof. It was like our own little MDS project at home!!

In recent years, in addition to volunteering with the Senior RV Program with the actual rebuilding, Len and Nettie have also undertaken the responsibility of receiving, servicing and inventorying all of the MDS vehicles and tool trailers at the large storage facility at Columbus, Mississippi, when the projects close. More recently, they have also been needed to HAUL some of the tool trailers and office trailers from the projects to the storage facility. It’s a good thing they enjoy traveling, as they put on a tremendous amount of miles in one season.

When we learned of the horrific tornadoes which ripped through Alabama, Mississippi and the other states recently, we were wondering whether Len and Nettie were still down there finishing up. A quick e-mail the day after the news of the tornadoes brought the following response: “We are in the midst of things down here and our guardian Angels will be getting overtime pay for sure…We have been scrambling to get the vehicles and equipment serviced and ready to respond to the devastation around us. Macon is half hour south, Birmingham is ninety minutes east, Aberdeen is twenty minutes north. Tuscaloosa is forty five minutes south east. We have strong winds, some thunder and lightning, the power went off around 4 pm and came back on during the night We expect some people tonight yet [from MDS Head Office in Pennsylvania] and by early tomorrow they will be off to investigate as to how to respond to this crisis.” We were very relieved to hear that they were safe, as well as those they have come to know and love as family down there from their yearly visits.

The next day, the following e-mail arrived from them: “The stories are coming over local media, a kindergarten class wiped out ---a person driving home when the vehicle is lifted up and found maybe seven miles away with occupant dead…” We are hoping the survivor stories will also start to come through. When we see the pictures of these places around us we know that we have truly been protected.”

We are so thankful that our friends are safe, and almost wish we could be there to help them with the initial contact and clean-up. However, the word is they have many agencies and assistance from neighbouring areas that the tornadoes did not demolish, and if MDS requires volunteers, we would be notified. Our Senior RV crews are not involved in the initial clean-up, but rather are called in quite a time afterwards for rebuilding and repairing homes for those citizens who “fall through the cracks” – the elderly and the poor who don’t have insurance. The MDS field reps are already in the area of the new tornadoes assessing where its assistance will be best provided by regular MDS volunteers. They will be on the front lines dealing with those in crisis, hearing many of the stories of the people who have lost everything.

John is in the process of getting together a local MDS response team which will be ready for action in the event of a disaster in our area. It is in the beginning stages. He has met with members of the Ministerial Association to inform them of the plans and provided the with sign-up forms for volunteers. There are no special requirements for volunteers, just be ready, willing and able to assist should the need arise. The “purpose” is: (1) to assist citizens in Prince Albert area in cleaning up debris after an initial disaster and (2) to make temporary repairs that will help secure structures and prevent secondary damage after an initial disaster (intended to address wind damage to buildings and trees and flooding damage to buildings). We were astonished to hear about the severe wind damage that was done in Prince Albert area several years ago. It certainly refuted the idea that tornadoes do not occur in our area. The consensus is that sooner or later, there will be some natural disaster which will require such a team to be ready to go.

Please call John at 763-8180 in the event you would be willing to be a part of a local MDS response team.

RV Roof Repair

2011-05-05T18:25:00.001-07:00

Looks like I missed posting one of my earlier articles, so I am doing it here:

REPAIR OF RV ROOF

John had been noticing for two years already that the roof of our fifth wheel trailer was becoming spongy around the area of the air conditioning unit. It was high time we got it fixed, or at least start getting quotes to get it fixed.

A guy in Beaumont quoted a minimum of $7,000 and he needed the trailer for 3 weeks. At Orange, where we had bought the RV, the quote was $5,500. The New Iberia RV dealer said he could fix it for $7,000, with another $700 for metal. At that point, John was thinking metal might be the way to go instead of rubber because he thought it would last longer. Then, along the road through our RV Park came a truck marked “Fun in the Sun Mobile R.V. Repair”. John tracked him down and Melvin came over to check out our roof. His diagnosis was that the air conditioning unit had probably been leaking since the factory and that some of the rafters may need replacing. He did not recommend metal, as it was more difficult to put on and not as flexible as rubber.

We indicated that we were under some time constraints, as we were leaving New Iberia at the end of the month and he said that if we could get it to his place on Sunday, February 20th, he could have it done by Wednesday, the 23rd. We somehow got the impression that we could live in it while he was working on it, but that plan fizzled out when we learned later that he lived on an acreage at Cecelia, north of Breaux Bridge, some 40 minutes away! His quote was $4,500, possibly $5,000, depending on what he found when he opened it up. He also advised that he would be putting on a layer of ¼ inch marine plywood underneath the new rubber top.

Now this was something that required serious consideration, when we hear there are all kinds of fly-by-night operators around. The campground owners said they had never heard anything but good comments about his work and pricing. Accordingly, we took the RV up to Melvin’s place and left it for the three days. We moved what we needed into the motel across the highway from our RV Park. It was not a fancy motel by a long shot ($39.99 a night), but it was adequate and clean, and we only had to kill four cockroaches… They are a fact of life down there, and the motel has all the rooms sprayed with an organic pesticide once a month. Our room was sprayed the last day we were there.

An old friend from Fort McLeod had told us the story of a holiday trip they had taken in Southern Louisiana some years ago. She had told us that she particularly LOVED the New Iberia/Breaux Bridge area. I can honestly say that New Iberia itself did not impress me in any way, shape or form. However, when driving up the road to Breaux Bridge from New Iberia, we witnessed what she was talking about. It is an absolutely gorgeous drive, with huge ancient oak trees overhanging the road for miles, branches meeting in the middle, with lush acreages on either side. As John wanted to see the open roof and how things were going at Melvin’s acreage, we enjoyed the scenery one extra time...

At that time, it was also quite obvious it would not have been convenient for anyone to be living in the unit as it was being repaired! Each of the ceiling vents and both sky lights, as well as the air conditioning unit, had to be removed. All of the gaskets and flashing were replaced and a new skylight was installed in the bathroom.

When we picked up the RV on Wednesday at 5 p.m., we were more than satisfied with the result. What a breath of fresh air when the final bill came to $4,500! John had one of his handy dandy bee keepers bars with him and gave it to Melvin as a bonus. It is a tool that he would not be without, and when Melvin looked at it, he could see that it would be something he could certainly use.

Back home again March 2011

2011-04-24T19:09:00.000-07:00

What a delight to be home! At least it was last week, when 90% of the snow in our yard was GONE. It was my daunting task to tackle cleaning up 6 months of doggie doodoo, and it was quite obvious that there had been many snowfalls, as there were layers of it exposed during the melting process - my task, I say, because it is my choice to have the dog… The garbage man (husband) will have the wonderful job of taking it to the dump. Oh the joys of having a pet. The good thing is that we only have one dog, unlike our son’s family, who has two, larger than ours, so he has more than twice the clean-up. The children probably get stuck with that job!

It was not so delightful to wake up to find all the snow back on the yard the beginning of the week ! And then more coming yet… Back to square one, with just the walks shoveled and a trail to the garden shed. The snow was so heavy that the sun deck needed to be relieved of the weight. Our metal roof that was finally cleared of snow, was in exactly the same state as when we arrived home in mid March. Obviously we should have extended our trip south another month…

Then when the news included 62 tornadoes in one day in North Carolina, and 240 throughout the USA the same day, how foolish we feel complaining about the inconvenience of another downfall of snow!!! Looking on the U.S. map shows that North Carolina is a very small state. 60 tornadoes would pretty well devastate the whole state.

It was a wonderful surprise to receive a telephone call from Jeanerette, Louisiana, in the middle of the week. There was Rosella, one of our homeowners, who was just thinking of us and wanted to keep in touch. When I inquired about what she had been doing recently, she replied, “Oh, just sitting here waiting for you to come back!” When we are asked why we do what we do with MDS, this is one more confirmation that God sends us to people who have a need for a special personal touch, even more than just help rebuilding their home. What an enormous blessing we receive from these contacts. Whether we ever get to see them personally again is unknown. She has never seen snow in person, so I wished she could have been here instead of on the telephone…

As you are aware if you have been following our story, we have tremendously enjoyed attending Cowboy Churches in Texas and Louisiana. Upon our return, we suggested to our home church, Grace Mennonite, that we would like to try that casual type of service here and were happy to find they were receptive to the idea. Accordingly, you will soon be seeing posters about a Cowboy Church service on Father’s Day, in the restored old-fashioned barn at Spruce Home Farm, followed by a dinner which can be purchased, and a Country Gospel Jamboree in the afternoon featuring Larry Krause and others. Any proceeds generated at the dinner and from goodwill offerings at the Jamboree will be donated to Mennonite Disaster Service. We hope we will see y’all there. It should be a very enjoyable Father’s Day! I sort of see it as akin to St. Patrick’s Day, where everyone is Irish. This Father’s Day we can all be “cowboys”. At one Cowboy Church we attended, the pastor told us to feel free to say “Eee-haw” instead of Amen!

Tribute to Hospital Chaplains Article for Shopper

2011-04-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

Hospital chaplains are a tremendous blessing to patients in palliative care and their families. We have encountered two very special gentlemen in that capacity. First of all, our very own Pastor Dennis Serfas, with the Prince Albert Parkland Health Region has been a most dedicated, caring chaplain, for 15 years. Anyone who has had been in the position to require those services can attest to the fact that he goes above and beyond in his compassionate care. How difficult this profession must be! Daily helping terminally ill patients, and the people who love them, deal with the situation they find themselves in and have no control over, must take a special kind of person indeed. Pastor Joe Ball at the Brandon Regional Health Centre, was truly a Godsend for our whole family during the time Jake was in palliative care, from January 12th to March 13th. We had been told by our niece what a wonderful man he was, and that was immediately confirmed upon meeting him. His warmth and sincerity impressed us and it was apparent why he had “bonded” with our brother at this critical stage of his life. Joe Ball, in his words at the funeral, indicated that in this case, Jake knew how to live, but he wasn’t so sure how to go about dying. He appeared to be so “well” for so long, it was difficult to believe he was a dying man. His meeting with all of the family in Jake’s home the evening after his death was a huge blessing for all of us. He asked the family members to share their memories, whether good or bad, and it was a time of laughter and tears which we will all remember with great fondness. It truly allowed the grief to be present, but at the same time, ushered in the concept of celebrating Jake’s life rather than only grieving his death. None of the rest of the family had attended a church except for a wedding or funeral in many years. It was therefore very astonishing to hear many of the family say, after Joe left, “What church does he preach in. I want to go there!!!” Although being a Hospital Chaplain is a full-time job and Joe Ball does not preach on Sunday mornings in a regular church, the Good Lord surely has him in the spot where his exceptional gifts lie. Rita confirms that his calming presence helped her greatly in dealing with her loss.

And for Jake’s family, the Circle of Life continues, as on April 2, 2011, Easton Rachel, a new great grandbaby was born.

A very strange occurrence in the family the week after Jake died was grandson, Dustin’s 3 year old daughter, Brooklyn, asking her big sister to get her a pencil, whereupon she put it up above her ear, JUST LIKE HER GREAT GRANDPA JAKE ALWAYS DID in years gone by. They did not believe little Brooklyn had ever known about this habit. How did she know now???

Our own family has their own weird experience with our little granddaughter. At age 2 ½, she appeared to be having terrible nightmares in the early mornings and would wake up holding her ears and screaming: “Make it stop, make it stop”. They could not figure out what might be causing the nightmares. When asked “Make what stop?”, she finally told her Mom, “the quacking!!!”. Then Jeanie recalled that her Grampa Pugh, who had passed on before Emily was born, used to wake her up when she was that age, by quacking in her ear!!??! Gives me goosebumps just thinking about the possibilities….

Last week of February in New Iberia 2011

2011-04-11T20:02:00.001-07:00

Although it is already April and we are back at home, there are still stories to tell about our time in New Iberia.

Our last week in February was a very busy one. It was unbelievable what we seniors accomplished in four short days!

Monday, the ladies painted doors and soffit at one house, while the guys took all the furniture out and began to put down laminate flooring throughout the living room, kitchen, back bedroom and loft. We all lamented that this laminate was going over top of beautiful, albeit well worn, hardwood flooring!

Tuesday, while the rest of the crew were finishing up the laminate, John and I were sent to the George house to remove and install one more window which had been ordered the wrong size and had finally arrived. Then we were off to Jeanerette, where John put the bathroom vent pipe in, and we got Rosella and her husband to sign off on the job card. We were happy to have one last visit and to say goodbye in person.

Wednesday was a very BUSY day. Last year, the MDS crew had repainted half of Karen’s bedroom, and built and painted a walk-in closet, as well as putting lino on half of her floor - that is all she could afford to get done at the time. This year, we were to repaint the rest of the bedroom, repair and put lino on the rest of the floor, fix two doors so they would close, put crown mould around the top of the ceiling, fix the folding closet doors, and replace some ceiling tiles in the living room. Well, I tell you, it was like a beehive in that house! First, the furniture had to be moved into the living room. The ladies painted the walls, and then the men fastened the crown mould on top of the wet paint. The poor subfloor was so rotten in places that we were wondering why the bed leg hadn’t fallen through! Plywood was put down before the lino was laid. By the time we left at 3:30 p.m., EVERYTHING was done and back in place. We were certain Karen was going to be one happy lady coming home to a “new” bedroom, and a bathroom door that she could actually close! We wished we could do much more work for her, but it was not on the list. As warm and homey as the house is on the inside, the outside looks like an old granary, and could really use some new siding! Maybe next year…

Thursday, the last work day for John and I, our crew started a totally new project. Betty is a grandma with a wonderful family. We had the pleasure of interacting with several of her grandchildren for the one day. Her 10 year old grandson and his friend offered to clean out the back porch. We were replacing the screen, ensuring there were no places where wasps and bugs could get in.

John always enjoys bantering with the homeowners. After we had been there for an hour or so, he asked the teenage grandson, Wilson, sitting in the living room on the chesterfield with his cousins and Grandma, if he would stand up. He did, and then John said “Thank you!” The kid said, “For what?” John said, “For not wearing your crotch down around your knees!!” They all laughed. A short while later, Wilson was helping haul in sheets of gyproc, and wanting to mud the nail holes. In the one day we were there, we realized it was our loss not to get to become more acquainted with this family, as the other workers would be doing. However, our time working there was completed.

Obituary - Jake Braun

2011-03-31T07:35:00.000-07:00

In Loving Memory of
JACOB BRAUN

March 2, 1932 - March 13, 2011

Rather than mourn
the absence of the flame
let us celebrate how brightly it burned.
Let’s comfort one another
with favorite memories
of sharing times when we were all together,
Let’s celebrate the spirit of one very special life
So in our hearts the flame will burn forever

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

TRIBUTE TO JAKE BRAUN
With Love, by Linda Braun

When Jake asked me several months ago to do the Eulogy at his funeral, I was speechless. What an honour! Even though he has been my brother-in-law for 42 years, I thought surely there was someone else who could better say the things that need to be said, but I am going to give it my best...

How does one eulogize such man as Jake Braun? Jake was a man for all people! We cannot even comprehend how life can continue without our brother, husband, father, grandfather, uncle, and above all friend, who has been our solid rock for so many years.

To Jake’s family: Rita, Terry and Debbie, Donna and Brent, Rick and Deb, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, brothers, George and John, and sister, Anne, nephews and nieces, and Rita’s brothers, we grieve with you in the loss of your beloved Jake. However, Jake showed us unquestionably how we all have to be strong and get through this with dignity and grace, as he did throughout the many years of his illness, right to the very end.

First and foremost, Jake’s family was always the most important aspect of his life. He cherished Rita and adored her special traits that endeared her to him in the first place. She was his soul mate and his right hand. It was his nature to bug the heck out of her – that was his way of showing her how very much he loved her.

Jake’s children made him proud, even when they didn’t do the things he thought they should, or shouldn’t do. He loved them unconditionally and was always there to support them. He had a very good head on his shoulders and you could count on Jake for reasonable advice. He allowed the latitude to take it or leave it, but mostly his advice was right on.

The family enjoyed many outings and activities. Camping, golfing, snowmobiling, fishing and spending quality time at their cabin at Oak Lake were some of their favorites. They also enjoyed many hours popping popcorn, and spinning cotton candy at local fairs with their concession booth. And then there was all that time fixing washing machines and dryers and folding clothes at the Laundromat…

When the grandchildren came, they proved to be “the cream of his crop”. He felt blessed to be so close to Dustin and Tiara as they were growing up. Recently when Jake and Rita and John and I were on a road trip together, we were traveling through Manitoba, and Jake would point out places where they had gone - just hopped into the car and taken the kids to see the countryside. It was obvious that these were treasured memories for him to enjoy over the years. He was tremendously proud of them both as they grew up to be responsible hardworking young adults.

Then, even though their two granddaughters, Lindsey and Randi, lived way out in Alberta, they were a big part of Papa and Palma’s lives - and Jake had somebody new to bug. They knew they could count on Papa for all the love a grandfather could show, and then some. How he loved his girls! And how he enjoyed watching them grow up into beautiful young ladies with lofty goals and good judgment. He never hesitated to tell them how proud he was of who they were.

He ensured that J.J. and Ricky stayed a part of their lives though they lived in B.C., and when they moved to Manitoba again, Jake made sure they felt a part of the family. When Ange and Jeremy, and then Ian became part of the family, he welcomed them with open arms.

Although he never felt old enough to have great-grandchildren, they too enjoyed his attention, which was basically “bugging” with lots of hugs and kisses.

Jake was the glue that held OUR family, the Braun family together, his brothers and sister, nieces and nephews, all of whom he made feel special. We could always count on him for support and good advice, and regular telephone calls just to keep in touch. He was there for each and every one of us.

Then there is Julie’s family, the Puhatches, who adopted Jake many years ago. He felt a part of your family as well, and valued that relationship deeply. And Debbie, who can testify that the love of Jake and Braun family is the reason she is still here today. And Donna across the street who had been like a family member for many years, as well as her husband, John and their children.

We all know that Jake had a way of making people feel very special and good about themselves. It was one of his most admirable qualities.

An enjoyable part of his life for many years was their dog, Jennie. It was so difficult when she died that he wrote a beautiful poem about her. Jake had a talent for writing short stories as well. He was published in The Saskatchewan Senior on many occasions and had planned to write a book about his life experiences.

To get into Jake’s accomplishments in various aspects of his life would take us all day. Suffice it to say, he was probably the best teacher his students ever had; he could run a meeting in the most efficient and entertaining manner so that people were happy to be there; he was an excellent businessman; he never started a project that he didn’t finish; and above all he was the first to volunteer where help was needed, both with friends, and with the many clubs and community organizations he was part of.

As a man who passionately cared about his country, his community and his family, he was also actively involved in politics. He knew Preston Manning and Steven Harper personally and was proud to help the Reform Party get on its feet.

In retirement, he and Rita were able to do some traveling. They went on a teachers’ tour to Greenland, one of the first tours ever to that destination. When Jake was District Governor of the Lions, they traveled all over North America. They enjoyed an extended vacation in Florida and it was a joy to hear them reminisce about their trip to Las Vegas! One of their favorite trips was to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, and most recently, they were totally thrilled to enjoy a cruise to the Bahamas with Donna and Brent. With Jake using a “transporter chair”, aka a wheelchair so he didn’t have to walk everywhere, all four of them went FIRST CLASS and he had many stories to tell about their adventures.

Telling stories was one of Jake’s forte´s. You could always depend on him coming up with a good joke, either in a meeting, or in visiting. His repertoire of jokes was endless, and he was a master joke-teller!

Among the things he enjoyed to do most was dancing! He could dance the feet off of Rita and could not resist dancing at an anniversary party even as late as this past summer.

In the last few years, he became involved with the Brandon Prostate Support Group. From what I gather, attending a meeting chaired by Jake Braun was never a dull event. You never know what he was going to come up with next . . . you either had to get on board the train or you were left at the station!

A general observation: If you wanted to get something done, Jake was the guy to do it. He didn’t have enough time to do all the things he wanted to accomplish. We did see firsthand how excited he was in December when he came home from the Mayor’s office. His proposal about how the City and the Lions Clubs of Brandon could apply for grants and effectively refurbish all of the outdated Community Centres in the City had been favorably received and he was on Cloud 9. This was just a few short months ago.

Recently, I had asked him if he had any items left on his “bucket list”. Those of you who have seen the movie will know what I am talking about. Although he had put some of the things he would have liked to do on the back burner, his reply was “Not really”. That answer was a testimony as to how Jake had lived his life. He did it all, and extremely well. He had met and married his sweetheart; he had an exemplary career as a teacher and educator; he had traveled to every place that he ever wished to; he had met so very many people in so many avenues of life who called him “friend”; he had rubbed shoulders with people in high places; he had his share of fun and fulfillment, right to the very end. What more could a man ask?

Rita, you will always carry Jake “right here”, but now life takes on a different dimension for you. We know these last months helping Jake get through this have been hell on earth for you. But what an admirable job you have done. No man could ask more of his wife than you gave to Jake. We know he appreciated every second of his time with you. We pray that you can find the strength to carry on and find much happiness in the years to come.

Terry, we know that your Dad was also your best friend. The excellent heritage he has passed on to you is the best gift he could have given. Hold tight to those family values that meant so much to him.

Rick and Deb, you made the Friday night card games the highlight of Jake’s week over these last years. We know you will miss those times of love and laughter. Your happiness meant everything to Jake and it warmed his heart to see that you had finally found it.

Donna, you are your father’s child and we know that you realize that with pride. You showed us your Dad’s heart as you were at his bedside and supported your Mom throughout his illness, right to the end. And Brent, emblazoned in our memories is the classic birthday invitation – in disbelief, we watched Jake, who could barely walk, walking around the table and getting down on one knee to invite you to his birthday party – then the realization set in that there was no way he could get up off the floor without help from us!

Jake was thankful for his many blessings and he had made his peace with God in his last years. Now, he is living away from us, but we know he is in a better place. We are certain that Heaven is blessed by his presence, and he is surrounded by all those of his family and friends who have gone before. We all know that Heaven will never be a dull place with Jake Braun there!

Some of you may have heard the following “wish” before, but I am certain it would be what Jake wishes for all of us here. It is called “Enough”:

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

(Awesome Southern Gospel song)
IF YOU ONLY KNEW
by the Inspirations

If you only knew
I’m just going home
Your prayers are all answered
My sickness is gone

Things are much better
From Heaven’s view
The sun always shines
We’re having a time
If you only knew.

SMILE, LOVE LIFE, I DID!!

Last week in New Iberia end of Feb. 2011

2011-03-31T07:29:00.000-07:00

P.A. Shopper Article: LAST WEEK OF FEBRUARY IN NEW IBERIA

Although it is already April and we are back at home, there are still stories to tell about our time in New Iberia.

Our last week in February was a very busy one. It was unbelievable what we seniors accomplished in four short days!

Monday, the ladies painted doors and soffit at one house, while the guys took all the furniture out and began to put down laminate flooring throughout the living room, kitchen, back bedroom and loft. We all lamented that this laminate was going over top of beautiful, albeit well worn, hardwood flooring!

Tuesday, while the rest of the crew were finishing up the laminate, John and I were sent to the George house to remove and install one more window which had been ordered the wrong size and had finally arrived. Then we were off to Jeanerette, where John put the bathroom vent pipe in, and we got Rosella and her husband to sign off on the job card. We were happy to have one last visit and to say goodbye in person.

Wednesday was a very BUSY day. Last year, the MDS crew had repainted half of Karen’s bedroom, and built and painted a walk-in closet, as well as putting lino on half of her floor - that is all she could afford to get done at the time. This year, we were to repaint the rest of the bedroom, repair and put lino on the rest of the floor, fix two doors so they would close, put crown mould around the top of the ceiling, fix the folding closet doors, and replace some ceiling tiles in the living room. Well, I tell you, it was like a beehive in that house! First, the furniture had to be moved into the living room. The ladies painted the walls, and then the men fastened the crown mould on top of the wet paint. The poor subfloor was so rotten in places that we were wondering why the bed leg hadn’t fallen through! Plywood was put down before the lino was laid. By the time we left at 3:30 p.m., EVERYTHING was done and back in place. We were certain Karen was going to be one happy lady coming home to a “new” bedroom, and a bathroom door that she could actually close! We wished we could do much more work for her, but it was not on the list. As warm and homey as the house is on the inside, the outside looks like an old granary, and could really use some new siding! Maybe next year…

Thursday, the last work day for John and I, our crew started a totally new project. Betty is a grandma with a wonderful family. We had the pleasure of interacting with several of her grandchildren for the one day. Her 10 year old grandson and his friend offered to clean out the back porch. We were replacing the screen, ensuring there were no places where wasps and bugs could get in.

John always enjoys bantering with the homeowners. After we had been there for an hour or so, he asked the teenage grandson, Wilson, sitting in the living room on the chesterfield with his cousins and Grandma, if he would stand up. He did, and then John said “Thank you!” The kid said, “For what?” John said, “For not wearing your crotch down around your knees!!” They all laughed. A short while later, Wilson was helping haul in sheets of gyproc, and wanting to mud the nail holes. In the one day we were there, we realized it was our loss not to get to become more acquainted with this family, as the other workers would be doing. However, our time working there was completed.

March newspaper article re Mardi Gras

2011-03-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

The spirit of Mardi Gras was ever evident in New Iberia, Louisiana, during our time there in January and February. The Carnival Season begins on the Feast of the Epiphany (Twelfth Night – January 6th) and ends at Midnight on Mardi Gras (“fat Tuesday”) the day before Ash Wednesday. Carnival can be translated to mean a farewell to the flesh. Though Mardi Gras actually refers to just the one day (the Tuesday before the first day of Lent), rather than refer to “Carnival”, it is common to call it the Mardi Gras season, with balls, parades and other festivities taking place throughout the entire period, January 6th to Mardi Gras day.

The brilliant Mardi Gras colors are very symbolic. Purple symbolizes justice, green symbolizes faith, and gold symbolizes power.

A Mardi Gras tradition is the King Cake. It originated in 12th century France to celebrate the visit to the Christ Child by the three kings (or Three Wise Men). The cake is circular in shape and decorated with sugar in the three colors of Mardi Gras representing a king’s bejeweled crown. In times gone by, the plastic or ceramic figure of a baby was hidden in the cake to represent the difficult time the three Wise Men had finding the Christ Child and the gifts brought. Whoever found the baby in their piece of cake was supposed to buy the next King Cake. Nowadays, at most outlets, the baby just lays on the top of the cake.

Each community in Mardi Gras country has at least one large parade. In the urban centres, especially New Orleans, their parades are very elaborate. There are various named organizations, called “Krewes”. Each Krewe has its own royalty: King, Queen, Maids and Dukes elected annually. Each Krewe holds an annual themed masked ball at which that year’s court is presented to the rest of the Krewe. Prior to the ball, members of the court are kept secret. The themed masked balls are very sophisticated affairs. Some of the parades are conducted by separate Krewes. Items thrown from parade floats by Krewe members include beads, plastic cups with the Krewe’s crest, doubloons bearing the Krewe’s crest and some referent to the theme of that year’s ball, or toys.

Over the years we have attended mostly small town Mardi Gras parades. They reminded us of small town Saskatchewan parades where everyone in the community is involved, and everyone is safe and having a good time. The larger centers’ parades are more boisterous and sometimes not all that safe.

This year, although there was no actual Mardi Gras parade in the area while we were there, as volunteers, we were treated to an all-you-can-eat boiled shrimp feast hosted by the Methodist Church. They invited the over 80 MDS and other volunteers they knew of. The feast was delicious, and as an added bonus, the Krewe of the Methodist Church gave us a mini Mardi Gras parade in the dining hall. As we were enjoying the feast, about a dozen beautifully costumed Krewe members including this year’s King and Queen, accompanied by lively taped Cajun Mardi Gras music, wove in and around the guests, placing strands of Mardi Gras beads around each guest’s neck. It was a highlight of our time in Louisiana.

We are actually at home

2011-03-09T08:16:00.001-08:00

Jake and Rita and J.J. and Ricky (Rick's two boys)on Grampa's 79th birthday.

Just thought we'd let you know that we have returned early to help Jake celebrate his 79th birthday on March 2nd. We stayed in Brandon for a week and then, as Jake appears to be rallying in palliative care, we decided to come home. Rita was happy to have the support for the week. She and Donna are at the hospital as much as they can be.

We had planned to still be in Texas by now, and when we have to go outside, we wish we were still there...

The last week in New Iberia, we stayed in a motel across the highway from the RV Park for 3 days while the roof on our RV was being repaired. We had to take it to Breaux Bridge to be done. We were very thankful to get an efficient, well priced job done. That's a rare commodity down there (or anywhere, for that matter).

Shari and Abby are happy to have us home. Shari's new cat, Minx, is not so sure about it.

No doubt we will be travelling back to Brandon before too long, either to give Rita a break in hospital visiting, or to be there for the final farewell. The fact that Jake is still here and in the shape he's in is nothing short of a miracle. The doctors can't even figure it out!!

Have a good day!

P.A. Shopper Article re Hopkins Street Revitalization

2011-03-09T08:12:00.000-08:00

Hopkins Street Revitalization, New Iberia, LA

First of all, I must make a clarification. In the last paper, the caption below the picture of Art and Bruce in his mask in the MDS trailer should have read: “Insulating is a hot job.” There was no hot tub involved!!

There is some degree of controversy as to whether the participation of Mennonite Disaster Service in the revitalization of the poverty-stricken area of Hopkins Street in New Iberia, LA. is a worthy mission. From speaking to most of our volunteers who have worked in this area, there is no doubt that helping these people has been a blessing to themselves beyond measure. One of our friends wrote in her Christmas letter “We worked in an area where the poor were barely surviving, having been born into extreme poverty, and never knowing another way of life. They simply exist, without hope, until someone takes the initiative to reach out to them.”

We are at this place in conjunction with “The Hopkins Street Revitalization Project”. Historically, the district was the hub of African American Culture in Iberia Parish, and home to many of New Iberia’s middle class Black families; teachers, railroad workers and business owners all fueled by a large and successful group of sugar cane farmers. The area began to deteriorate in the mid seventies and the process accelerated as local business were squeezed out of the capital market. The area suffers from the same urban maladies as most inner cities – drug related crime, high drop out rates, single parent female headed households, out of wedlock births, general health issues, sub par education and high unemployment. An excellent revitalization plan has been prepared to address abandoned and blighted properties and MDS has been involved in this plan providing volunteer labour.

The drive for the improvement of the conditions in the Hopkins Street area has been spearheaded by Joseph Lockwood, a former resident. Joseph grew up in this culture and is devoting his retirement to helping his neighbors and stopping this desperate cycle. He was fortunate to have the opportunity to pursue an education. He completed high school, went to University and had a career as an engineer. Coming back to visit his old stomping grounds, he was horrified at the state of affairs on Hopkins. He put his money where his mouth is and has been instrumental in officially beginning a Task Force for the implementation of a revitalization program. His goal has been to help shape the quality of life for generations to come and “to help our community be what it ought to be”. There are many others who have a heart for this project, including retired educators, judges, corrections officers and others, as well as Juanita Lewis, the lady who started St. Joseph’s Diner to feed the hungry and has run it for the past 11 years.

The focus of the revitalization is upgrading homes, ensuring a quality education for the children of the area, self-esteem issues, youth services, supervised recreational opportunities including Boys and Girls Clubs, student assessment, K.Y.T.E. (Keeping Youth Trained and Educated), Drug and Alcohol Programs, Job Skills Training and Behavior Modification and the National Guard Youth Challenge, just to name a few.

It is unknown as to how long MDS will be sending their volunteers to assist in upgrading the state of the housing where possible, but we do know that we have been very blessed to have played a small part in this worthy project.

New Crew for February

2011-02-28T19:21:00.000-08:00

If anyone had told us we would be making a quick trip back to Brandon for the first week of February, we would have said they were dreaming. However, we found ourselves doing exactly that when we learned that brother Jake was rallying. We drove three days there, on clear roads, where it had previously stormed, stayed 4 days, and drove three days back on clear roads, just before it started storming again! We had a wonderful visit with Jake and Rita, and the support right at that time was greatly needed.

As January ended in Louisiana, we had some changes to our crew. Bernie and Agnes stayed one week while we were gone to Brandon, and then headed off to Florida to do some vacationing with relatives. They will return to help again in March.

Art and Hilda went down to southern Texas to vacation at Snow to Sun. We believe they enjoyed their first encounter as Senior RV volunteers.

Newcomers were Bruce and Martha Isaak from Medstead, Sask. The only time we get to see them is when we come down south! They have been to New Iberia previously so were looking forward to coming back. Two other new couples arrived, one from Killarney, Mb. and the other from northern U.S.A. The Project Directors and crew foreman remained the same. They make a great team. We can hardly believe the amount of renovation work that has been accomplished in February: Four houses with complete window replacement, caulking and painting the frames, two houses of repairing and painting soffit and fascia, as well as the back siding on one, fixing and repainting doors, installation of laminate flooring and one house of vinyl flooring, as well as insulating three homes. All of these homes had the residents living in them, and the furniture and window coverings had to be moved out in order for the work to proceed. In addition for 90 per cent of the windows, the window air conditioner had to be removed and then re-installed when the new window was in. This was a huge amount of work in itself.

Each small improvement we could accomplish gave us a great deal of satisfaction. It was unbelievable what a difference it made to see a new coat of paint on the soffit and fascia. Where it had previously looked old and decrepit, it was now bright and clean and gave the whole house a “face lift”!

In addition, we encountered another interesting task which we were asked to do. One of the Directors of the Hopkins Street Renewal Project has a heart for feeding the hungry. For the past ten years, she, along with a number of other volunteers, prepares enough food every day to feed 350 underprivileged people breakfast and lunch at the St. Joseph Diner, a sort of food bank/hall. They needed a concrete hallway painted, so our ladies were sent over to do the painting in the morning. In the afternoon, our project was to paint the lines on their parking lot, including handicap areas. That was certainly something none of us had ever done before. The City of New Iberia provided the paint.

We are very much appreciating every day of lovely warm sunshine and 75 degree temperatures, and thinking of y’all back home enjoying the Saskatchewan winter.

Hi from New Iberia

2011-02-22T17:10:00.000-08:00

I seem to be having a writer’s block when it comes to my articles for the P.A. Shopper. So I decided I would just make mention of what’s up these days on the blog instead.

We’ve been down with the flu for a few days. Right now we are in a motel waiting for our RV roof to be repaired. Should be ready tomorrow. We were lucky enough to find a reliable outfit to do it. Apparently the air conditioning unit had been leaking probably since it was built, and the leakage caused the trusses to rot. Had to be done sooner or later…

The amount of repairs we have accomplished here in New Iberia in two months is unbelievable. Sometimes a house a day! If we were here for 10 years, there would still be work to be done!

I am attaching a picture of one job that we never expected to be doing! Painting the lines on the parking lot at the food bank!!

We certainly weren’t complaining about 80 degree weather today!!

Can’t believe we are only two days away from heading back to Canada. Jake is waiting for us to help him celebrate his 79th birthday!

Blessings to all who read this.

Newspaper article: Last week of January at New Iberia

2011-02-15T20:34:00.000-08:00

LAST WEEK OF JANUARY AT NEW IBERIA, LA

We had not spoken personally with brother Jake since we learned he was in hospital in Brandon for pain control, and then had been placed in palliative care in Assiniboine Hospital. We had only gotten phone reports from Rita that he was stabilized, then he had some more problems, then he was stabilized again. Accordingly, when a voice message showed on our Magic Jack telephone on the computer on Tuesday, January 25th, from their home phone number, we immediately assumed the worst.

Upon returning the call, surprisingly, John was able to speak with Jake, who was home from hospital for the day. It was such a shock and pleasure to carry on a converation with him sounding as strong and positive as ever, with no hint of illness or pain. John immediately made the decision that we were going to take a week off, and leave at the end of the week to go back to Brandon and visit with him while the visiting was good. They were both delighted!

The work week consisted of finishing up soffit and fascia at Rosella's house. We also painted the back porch floor. Hilda, one of our ladies who does not come to the job site due to allergies, does sewing in her R, and she made Rosella the most beautiful handbag. Presenting it to her gave Hilda the opportunity to see what we had been doing there for the past month. Rosella was delighted with the handbag, as it was in her favorite color, red.

Agnes and I had been addressed Rosella as "Miss Rosella", believing this was a term of endearment and respect in the south. One day, Rosella said, "Oh, please don't do that! It makes me feel so old". After that, we simply called her "Rosella" and she was happy. So much for our trying to be "Southern"...

We usually do a home dedication when a job is completed, but in this instance, Southern Mutual Help Association who provided the material was not anxious to do a home dedication until later on. It is questionable if any of us will even be here when the home dedication is actually done, so we were glad to have had our own little "presentation", such as it was, while we were all still here.

The men started on renovations to Gwen's home when they were done in Rosella's in Jeanerette. Gwen's home is in New Iberia so we will no longer have to drive the 20 miles to work every day.

When we left for Brandon on Friday morning, two new couples came in. Bernie and Agnes postponed their trip to Florida so they could stay and work the extra week that we would be gone. We were able to close up our RV and just drive away, to return to work on Monday, February 7th.

Third week in New Iberia 2011

2011-01-31T20:08:00.001-08:00

THIRD WEEK IN NEW IBERIA

While Americans were celebrating Martin Luther King Day on Monday, we were back at work. We are at liberty to work if it is acceptable to our homeowners, and they had no objection. Although a lot of businesses were closed, Chaney’s Lumberyard just down the block, where we buy our supplies, was open. Not only was it open, we were advised that the windows we ordered were in! Installing windows is what John did for a living for years. The windows were picked up at 9:30 a.m. John and Norm took the first old window out, and then John installed the new one. Then, as fast as Norm could remove the old mouldings and the windows, John installed the new windows, caulked and trimmed. It helped that all the windows had been properly measured and ordered, and that they were all the same size single-hung old style wood windows. Our Project Director and the rest of the crew could not believe that 13 windows were R & R (removed and replaced) by 3:30 p.m.! There was still lots of painting for the ladies to do. My job for the day was painting doors.

The Southern Mutual Group who has the say about what work is done at this house, decreed that Miss Rosella’s old kitchen would just get a face lift. The 5 cabinet doors were removed and Patty and I painted them outside on Tuesday. The many years of grime on the cabinet doors and drawer fronts had to be scrubbed off and then dried before they could be painted. The men were installing the flooring in the dining room. The rest of the ladies scraped the kitchen ceiling.

Wednesday I put a coat of black paint on the bottom cabinets. The top cabinets are white with black door handles, and the bottoms are black with white drawer fronts. It is quite pretty. The drawers themselves were blue and they got painted black along the side that shows when the drawer is open. They also got self-adhesive shelf paper inside the drawer bottoms.

By the end of Thursday, the kitchen and master bedroom got the final coat of paint, as well as the hallway. Porch doors were installed. The son-in-law fixed up the living room and installed the 72 inch TV. We were a bunch of busy bees. Another work week finished.

It has been very interesting to observe the community of trailer park dwellers. Many of them are living in RVs year round. The men come and go from their jobs, and the children run for the school bus. There are some holidayers, but they are in the minority. One couple from Illinois observed us walking to and from the building where we have our devotions in the morning and asked Patty what we were doing. She told them about our MDS projects. Patty learned that they come south to spend the winter in this RV park. To do what??? There really is nothing to do in New Iberia, LA.

We had attended the Gospel Concert one of the first weeks we were here and The Inspirations had sung the wonderful song, Beulah Land. Before doing so, the leader advised that the composer of that song, Squire Parsons, was a personal friend of theirs and was suffering from some health problems. Never in my wildest dreams did I envision being requested to personally pray for Squire Parsons! Apparently he is on the mend and did not even have to interrupt his concert tour.

One of our volunteer couples is from Fort Francis, Ontario. They were telling our group about the winter festival there, known as Ice Box Days. We all laughed when they referred to the 5 k. run as the “Freeze Your Gizzard Blizzard Run”!

Second week at New Iberia, January, 2011

2011-01-24T17:12:00.000-08:00

Agnes scraping diningroom wall

Painting bedroom closet doors

SECOND WEEK IN NEW IBERIA

Monday morning we were ready to get to work. We had advised the family of the elderly homeowners that the toilet would be out of commission for at least one night and it would be best if they had another place to stay for a couple of days, until the bathroom was finished. Then, as they spend all of their day watching TV in the living room, they would have no place to sit while we were painting the living room. They were very reluctant to leave their home for even one night, but finally agreed to go to her daughter’s place.

Finishing the bathroom was the first priority of our crew. The ladies painted the bathroom and then the men removed the old flooring, covered it with a sheet of new plywood and installed the new lino. The “stool” as it is called down here [toilet, to us] was put back in place and also the newly-painted bathroom vanity. Carolyn used every cleaner at her disposal, including her “Awesome” to try to make the very stained bathtub match the rest of the newly painted room. The curtain rod was put back up and the shower curtain hung back on. Agnes repainted the bathroom door and John installed a slide-bolt lock on the bathroom door after it was dry.

The walls in the house had not been primed when they were painted years ago and, accordingly, the paint was peeling off badly. In all rooms except the bathroom, we had to scrape it off – in some places the paint came off freely in sheets and in others, it simply could not be scraped off.

John and I stayed late Monday and texture sprayed the spare room. Tuesday, he prime- coated the ceiling and then the ladies helped cut in and paint the walls. I chose the job of painting the shuttered closet doors. Did they ever look fine with a nice new coat of white paint! We also texture-sprayed the living room on Tuesday, but it took “forever” to dry. Wednesday was a SUPER day: Wednesday morning, we primed the walls of the living room, but again, it took longer than the 2 hours it was supposed to take to dry. The men decided to lay the lino in the living room during the drying time. By 2 p.m., John and his ladies had the finish coat on the ceiling and walls completed. By 3:30, all the crown molding at the ceiling was on, all of the quarter round at the baseboards (which had also been purchased and painted this day) was installed, all of the beautiful 8 inch wood baseboard was cleaned up and the floor was cleaned up. The furniture was put back into the room, including the 72 inch flat screen T.V., the beautiful three-section black entertainment unit and couches along the walls, and the curtains put back on the windows, ready for Miss Rosella and Mr. Calvin to come home for the night. John also put the ceiling fan put back up. In addition, all of the paint supplies in the spare bedroom were removed and the floor was cleaned up and vacuumed in preparation for installation of the linoleum. The lino was laid, then the quarter round at the baseboard installed and repainted. What a day!! It was nothing short of a miracle.

Miss Rosella and Mr. Calvin were there on Wednesday morning, delighted to be back in their home, even though we were basically working around them again.

Thursday, we were treated to boudin sausage and cracklings for lunch, brought by a relative. Some of our crew enjoyed the spicy sausage!

The weather all week was on the cool side at night but nice sunshine during the day. Warm but not hot.

On Friday, our day off, we all enjoyed a tour through the Jeanerette Museum which told the story of the sugar cane industry in the area. The sweet little elderly Cajun lady who was the volunteer guide charmed us to pieces with her Cajun accent and knowledge of the area. She had lived here her whole life.

Saturday morning, John and I went out for breakfast. It was 10:35 a.m. and we were disappointed to find no fast food places served breakfast past 10:30. We ended up at Duffy’s Diner, which was a very unique 50’s style diner with beautiful memorabilia displayed. We struck up a conversation with a local retired couple, who advised that they come there often. She said she did her share of cooking when she raised her family and then her grandchildren – now she makes the choice not cook at all. They go to various places during the week and to some on a regular basis. Somehow, I cannot imagine not cooking and eating EVERY meal out.

As we deal with the work days, we are also dealing with worries about how brother Jake is doing up in Brandon. From our daily phone calls, we learn he has been placed in a private palliative care room and has a lot of bad days, but there are good days as well. We are thankful he is still able to spend several hours back at home on alternate days. We do not know if we will able to fulfill our commitment to MDS to stay here for the month of February. Time will tell.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

2011-01-19T18:32:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

We put in quite the day today. We arrived at the house at 8:30 and worked until 3:30 (our usual time to quit) and had a coffee break of about 15 minutes in the morning and a lunch break for about 40 minutes at noon.

LIVING ROOM:

John had texture-sprayed the whole room yesterday and it was not dry enough to prime by day’s end. John prime coated the ceiling and then started on the walls. The ladies cut in the corners and around the windows and helped paint the walls. Because the original paint had been put on without a prime coat, the paint was falling off the walls and everything that could be scraped off, had been scraped off. Some of it would simply not let go. When we applied the primer coat, some of the old paint that could not be scraped off let loose and caused some problems. It was then realized that we would not be able to apply the final coat of paint in the usual drying time, but would have to allow the primer to dry COMPLETELY.

While the prime coat was drying, the men laid the lino in the living room. By 2 p.m., John and his ladies had the finish coat on the ceiling and walls completed. By 3:30, all the crown molding at the ceiling was on, all of the quarter round (which had also been purchased and painted this day) at the baseboards was installed, all of the beautiful 8 inch wood baseboard was cleaned up and the floor was cleaned up. The furniture was put back into the room, including the 72 inch flat screen T.V., the beautiful three-section black entertainment unit and couches along the walls, and the curtains put back on the windows, ready for Miss Rosella and Mr. Calvin to come home for the night.

John put the ceiling fan put back up.

We felt that to have this room completed from beginning to end, plus finish off the bathroom, in one day was nothing short of a miracle.

BATHROOM

Carolyn used every cleaner at her disposal, including her “Awesome” to try to make the very stained bathtub match the rest of the newly painted room. Norm had the new pipe to hook up the plumbing in the sink, as well as installing the second handicap bar. The curtain rod was put back up and the shower curtain hung back on. Agnes repainted the bathroom door and John installed a lock on the bathroom door after it was dry. Linda and Carolyn washed the plastic potted plants that were the only decoration in the bathroom.

SPARE BEDROOM

This room had been finish painted yesterday. Today, all of the paint supplies, etc. were removed and the floor was cleaned up and vacuumed in preparation of installation of the linoleum. The lino was laid, then the quarter round at the baseboard installed and repainted.

HALLWAY

The ladies started scraping the paint off the walls getting it ready to be painted.

ALL IN ONE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

First week in New Iberia Jan, 2011

2011-01-11T15:48:00.000-08:00

FIRST WEEK IN NEW IBERIA, LA

It is always exciting to look forward to working with new people on a site where you have never been before. Some friends we have met on various sites had been in New Iberia and they had enjoyed it. The work here is classified as “revitalization”. We expect it to be much like we did at Cheek, Texas.

There was some confusion as to exactly where we were supposed to park our RVs, but we managed to get it all straightened out and now we are situated in the very nice KOC RV Park just outside of the city. New Iberia is about the same population as Prince Albert, but we are told it is fairly difficult to drive around in if you are not familiar with the streets. We will see soon enough.

First of all we have to get to work. We have never before worked with Project Director, Nelson, and Office Manager, his wife Patty, although we had met them briefly. Norman and Carolyn are the “experts” on the New Iberia area, having worked here on many projects. It is great that they can share their knowledge with those of us who have not been here before. Bernie and Agnes were with us in Marble Falls and have signed up here for the month of January. The other couple, besides ourselves, is Art and Hilda from Michigan. This is their first time with MDS RV. They have been going south for the last 5 years, but wanted to “do something productive” this year besides tour and enjoy the warmth.

The first home we are to work on is in Jeanerette, a small town about 12 miles south of New Iberia. Most of our clients are elderly, and this couple is no exception. The lady, Miss Rosella, a real sweet black lady is already simply loving to have us around. Her husband is kind of a crusty old gent and she has her hands full looking after him. He is able to walk, but just barely. They have home care for his needs.

Their home is a grand old home with 9 foot ceilings and huge rooms. It is relatively clean and uncluttered but in bad need of repair. On the sidewalk there was an indication this house was built in 1946! That makes it one year older than me… John immediately set to work drywalling the spare bedroom . They just put new gyproc on the ceiling, as it would have been more work to repair it. The outside wall had to be forced back in, as there was a 2 inch gap at the floor. John said what they need is eavestrough to prevent the water damage to the walls! He taped all the corners and fixed any spots that needed fixing. Now that bedroom is ready for the ladies to paint. We also have to paint two sets of shuttered closet doors.

The ladies have been working on scraping and painting the two large porches. Then the guys put up spindles on each porch (it didn’t have railing before) and put new screen all around. Painting the porches made the whole house look 75% better already. They figured they’d get that done before the forecasted rains and cold came.

We attended the local Cowboy Church Sunday morning and found a very friendly congregation. Sunday night our group traveled to Lafayette and attended a Southern Baptist Gospel Concert featuring the Southern Plainsmen at a Baptist Church. The group is from this area and their concert was excellent – the harmony was absolutely fantastic and they added just enough comedy to make for a lovely evening!

Mixed up messages

2011-01-11T15:35:00.000-08:00

I just realized I had not posted my article from the trip home from Texas in December onto our blog, so I have just posted it and apologize for it being out of order in dates. I am glad I can include more pictures on the blog than in the paper.

I would be interested in knowing who'all is reading this blog. If you are, would you please let me know by e-mailing us at redwingbraun@hotmail.com. Sure would appreciate that.

Now I will post the next article from New Iberia.

Have a good day!

Leaving Marble Falls Dec 1, 2010

2011-01-11T15:09:00.000-08:00

Minx

Miss Kaki in her new kitchen

The month end for MDS projects was November 26th . As our flight home was not until December 3rd, and there were still finishing touches required to Miss Kaki’s cottage, we worked an extra 3 days. At the last minute, the plumbing was not working and required further attention.

John had just learned “the rest of the story” regarding Miss Kaki. He and Mel had been visiting up at the concrete pad, and Mel told him that she really deserved this blessing of a special place to live. During the time she had been at the camp part time as a volunteer co-ordinator and commuting from Fort Worth, her daughter and son-in-law together with their grandson had ended up needing a place to live. Kaki moved into the basement suite in her house and sold the house to them for a low price, on the understanding that she would be able to live in the suite when she was back in Fort Worth, and would have a place to live in retirement. Since then, her daughter and her husband had marriage difficulties and divorced, requiring the house to be sold. This would be the first actual home Kaki had since this all happened, so everyone was very excited for her, and we were blessed to be a part of her excitement!

As our “project” was still not ready to begin, Mel said he had another job for the other ladies – I was still assisting with the cabin. His wife noted that the doors in their home were in dreadful shape and could use a paint job. The wife does not live with him full time, as they have two children they are putting through college and his job with the camp does not pay that well. She works for the University in a nearby city and they get together when they can. The ladies took all 15 doors off, including closet doors, removed the hinges and knobs, etc., and gave each door two coats of paint. They had been wood doors and were being painted white. When they were just about finished, they found another 4 doors in another wing of the house! The first two days, they were able to paint on Mel’s back patio, overlooking the lake and the meadow where our RV’s were parked. When it turned cold and windy, they were forced to take the rest of the doors to the large shop in the yard to be finished. Putting them back together again proved a bigger challenge than removing the hardware and required some assistance from the men.

Our tour at Marble Falls ended, we drove to Austin to catch our flight home on Friday, December 3rd. We could not have wished for a better flight. Everything was on time and went smoothly. We changed planes in Denver, where there was no snow yet. The first snow we saw was when we landed in Saskatoon. When we left Austin, the weather had been 75F degrees and we were happy to see it was only -8C in Saskatoon and the roads were clear.

So, don’t be surprised to see us in Prince Albert, from now until we fly back to Austin on December 29th. We will be spending Christmas with our family and traveling to Brandon to visit with Jake and Rita. Last word from there was that the radiation did not help the pain in his shoulder and he had had to double up on his medication. Unfortunately Rita has had a fall and injured her shoulder as well, so they will be happy for a visit. My Mom is also looking forward to having us home for at least over night.

Our daughter has adopted a cat from the SPCA in Prince Albert since we left, and he is a handsome fellow. Minx is a 9 year old neutered tabby/manx cross and has made himself quite at home with his mistress and the dog. However, with two new people in the house, he is having to adjust further. Probably by the time he has warmed up to us, we will be leaving again…

It was great to be back with our church family again. If you are looking for a church to attend over Christmas or at any time, we would love to invite you to Grace Mennonite across from the South Hill Mall. It is a small congregation with a fine young pastor and friendly welcoming people.

Ready for service in 2011

2011-01-05T18:50:00.000-08:00

The month at home passed so quickly. It was already time to catch our plane back to Austin and carry on with our MDS work. Despite all the difficulties people in Eastern Canada and the U.S. were having with flying, our connections were all right on schedule and the flights were excellent. The Saskatoon airport was abuzz with young people in their shorts and sandals headed to Mexico to party big time. Made you wish you were young again! There were also several wedding parties headed to warmer climates to get married.

Driving from Austin to Marble Falls, we realized that we would miss this part of Texas, as the Louisiana countryside is much different. We were pleased to be back in summer weather.

Before heading out to Louisiana with our R.V., John noted that the two tires on one side were very weather-checked. We had a flat with a weather-checked tire last year when traveling, so he decided not to risk it and bought two new tires. The tire shop was very slow and we were in and out with two new tires in about 15 minutes!

Our first stop was at Brookshire. We were coming into Houston just before rush hour and decided we would wait until morning to go through. It is a very easy city to get through, as I-10 goes right through the centre of it and the markings are very clear in the pavement. The Good Sam campground was a little more expensive than we would have liked, at $33.00 a night, but it was nice and the lady gave us a $3.00 coupon which helped. I was pleased to have internet access.

Our second stop was Ben Rogers Welcome Centre in Beaumont where we hoped to say hello to our old friends, LaRue and Jessie; however, they were both off for New Years. The only one we knew was Joe, the maintenance man, so we gave him a big hug for them, and carried on to Johnson Bayou, LA. There were several friends I had hoped to see, but with the large RV and the road being quite narrow, it was not comfortable to be driving in places where we could not get in and out. The only place we could stop was the RV park where we had stayed when we worked there, and 76 year old Miss Flora Belle Trahan lived next door. Although we did not work on her house last year, our MDS friends did, and she remembered us from when we were there two years ago. It was obvious she did not get very many visitors, as she was totally delighted to have us show up on her doorstep, even if only for a few minutes. Her husband had passed away 9 months ago.

Then we continued on to New Iberia. We were not familiar with the area east of Lake Charles and chose to take a secondary road instead of I-10, as it looked like a good highway on the map. We soon realized that we should have taken I-10 all the way, as this was a poorly maintained two-lane highway. We did get to see country that we would not have seen otherwise.

We could not believe all the fireworks that were set off during New Years – New Years Eve and New Years Day and even the day after, it was like being on a firing range with the pop, pop, pop, starting at dark and going on until late at night. There are fireworks stands on just about every corner.

It's the end of December already???

2010-12-27T13:30:00.000-08:00

Our December at home

Where did the month go? We arrived home on December 3rd and the month has been filled with activity. The new cat is fairly adjusted to us being here, and the old dog is acting up, somehow knowing that we will be leaving again.

The big news when we arrived home was that our daughter was now the proud owner of a brand new 50 inch flat screen television which she was lucky enough to win at her work Christmas party! We have very much enjoyed her new television in our livingroom, which is not really large enough to accommodate such a large TV!

When we walked into the house, the sight of Shari’s 3 foot white artificial Christmas tree was perfect, sitting on the white wicker coffee table in our sun room. There was no necessity to put up our larger green tree at all. We did put up some extra Christmas lights and decorations in the sun room windows and on our fireplace mantel, and I brought out some of my Santa and angel collections.

The grandchildren were delighted to have us home and we spent as much time with them as we could. One evening they came to visit and were complaining about being bored. It was a fairly nice evening, so we suggested they might want to go out and play in the snow. It was neat to watch them out there, in the front yard, where there was not even one track made in the snow, flopping around in the snow like seals on ice, with only the Christmas lights on the front of the house and the corner street light for them to see. Soon they were trudging around in the virtual dark in the back yard, doing heaven knows what. Grampa found out what it was they were doing the next morning – pushing back onto the sidewalk all the snow he had shoveled out, as well as the area he had shoveled out to make a place for the dog, so it didn’t mess throughout the whole yard.

We had a small birthday party with cake for Emily at our house the day of her birthday, as her official birthday party was to take place later at the Bowling Alley. That is a wonderful place to have a birthday party! So much for the children to do.

We made a quick trip to Brandon to check out how John’s brother is faring and found him in great spirits, despite the fact he is suffering severe shoulder pain which is now requiring serious medication. His doctor commented, when he went to emergency for pain relief, “And now it starts”. We are so thankful he has been relatively pain-free up until now. Rita was a good sport having company when her dentist had ordered her to not put her dentures back in her mouth for two weeks. Her daughter teased her mercilessly when she visited, saying “How is my little gummy bear today??” and “Say that again, Mom!!” We were thankful to learn that after two weeks without her teeth she did not require a biopsy on the lesion in her mouth, as it was her bottom plate which caused the problem. She lost some weight in those two weeks as well…

While we were there, they managed to get all of their family together for a dinner, which they had not been able to do for years. John was surprised when his niece came in with a birthday cake for Uncle John! Two over-nights in Langenburg were greatly appreciated by my Mom. She was very happy to have us attend with her the Christmas meal in the next-door South View complex. They have a volunteer who provides a home-cooked three course meal once a week for Seniors at South View and anyone else who wants to come, for $7.00. The Christmas meal was extra special for the Seniors and it seems that our presence there was all my Mom wanted for Christmas, so it was the least we could do.

We had planned to stay another night on the way back, but there was nasty weather predicted and we wanted to get home before it got to bad. As it was, we encountered blowing snow in places, and freezing rain just out of Prince Albert. It was a good decision not to stay.

Back home, we invited the neighbours over for Ted’s 70th birthday party on Saturday night. It was great to have a get-together while we were here. Then a few came over again for John’s 69th birthday on the 20th.

What a wonderful afternoon is provided for local children at Redeemer Lutheran Church as a Christian outreach. Our grandchildren have attended in previous years and when I saw the notice in the paper, I asked if they wanted to go again and they said yes. When we arrived at the church, we were advised that the plan was for the children to rehearse a re-enactment of the manger scene and the birth of Baby Jesus, and that when we picked the children up at 4 p.m., we were all invited to stay to see “the performance”. The children had great fun and the performance was wonderful. All the 4 year olds were in fluffy sheep outfits and baa-ed through the performance. It was so cute. Our 6 year old Emily was one of the angels. There were shepherds and wise men and a wicked ruler, along with Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus. Keely and Bryton were thrilled to be chosen to be the readers, and they did an excellent job. The “audience” got a lot of laughs out of the Pastor’s dynamic directing!

We had Christmas dinner at our house, with Darren and Jeanie and the kids, and Shari. $10 Christmas lottery packs were the gifts of choice among the adults but there were no big winnings. Darren and Shari each won $10. John got a Ken Davis comedy video. Darren presented us with a new cell phone.

Shades of Christmas past

2010-12-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

SHADES OF CHRISTMAS PAST

As Christmas comes again, to me it always brings memories of Christmases past.

Being raised in a Christian family (for which I shall be eternally grateful), the Christ Child was always the centre of our Christmas. We attended a Lutheran Church and from the time we were old enough, each child participated in the Christmas Eve Service. Pastor A.O. Borchardt retired at that church after 50 years of service. His Christmas Eve children’s service was exactly the same for all the years that he was there, except there were different children. The younger children did group recitations of the old Christmas hymns and the older ones sang the carols. Everybody got a bag of candy with an orange on the way out. It was an exciting time for us children. My father had gone to this church all his life and had participated in exactly the same the Christmas Eve Service himself as a child - which probably contributed to his absence from the yearly service from about the time I was a youngster. He would be found resting on the chesterfield while his parents (who lived next door) and my mother and us four children would go off to the Christmas Eve Program. It was our custom to open most of our gifts on Christmas Eve, and lo and behold while Dad had been sleeping, all the gifts miraculously appeared under the tree. One special gift was saved for Christmas morning to open. I don’t know if that is a German custom or not, but it was a Christmas tradition at our house.

Recalling Christmas as a child brings the realization that times have so changed. We were delighted with the gifts we received, which in comparison to what today’s children expect, no offense, were mere trinkets. A doll, a sleigh, a G.I. Joe, a cassette tape, now would barely qualify for a decent birthday present… It makes it impossible for grandparents to compete in the Santa department. I know a lot of us don’t even bother any more. And I don’t even want to go to the place where written “thank you’s” were an expected courtesy.

Looking back over our own family Christmases, it is surprising which one I recall as a very SPECIAL Christmas. It was not the Christmas that we took our children age 11 and 8 to Disneyland. It was a very wonderful trip, but the four of us sitting in a motel room in Los Angeles was not the thrill we thought it would be for Christmas. We drug in a palm leaf off the street in absence of a Christmas tree. It was memorable in that it was the coldest Christmas there ever. ALL of the million, or so it seemed, poinsettias in the Disneyland complex froze! I was very thankful I had inadvertently brought along my “pink marshmallow” full length quilted winter coat. The locals were not prepared for such a deep freeze, and one homeless person died sleeping out on the street that week.

It also was not the Christmas, when we lived in Creston, that we took our young children to visit John’s brother and his wife in Kelowna. They have no children of their own. Guess what – somehow all of the gifts we had bought for the kids were left at home! We had to run about the day before Christmas buying a few new presents we thought they would like to have and not duplicate what they would get when we returned home!

Our best Christmas ever was the first year we moved into Creston from the lake house. As it was impossible to bury our water line on the rocky mountainside, when the freezing wind blew across the lake and up our side of the mountain, the pipes froze. The first year that happened, it was no big deal. We had a woodburning stove in the kitchen and it was kind of fun. We just “roughed it” for a week or so. There was snow to get in and melt for doing dishes, etc., and we got drinking water from the neighbour. It wasn’t so much fun the next year when the same thing happened. There was a little house in town that was for sale for a very reasonable price, just waiting for us to come along and need it. It had been my previous conviction that we would NEVER leave our mansion (so it was to me) on the lake with our crystal chandelier and million dollar view of Kootenay Lake. But then, I did not know “the bigger picture”. It was the first step to prying me off my mountainside and eventually moving to Prince Albert for reasons I can share in another story sometime.

But I digress. We moved into Creston and our first Christmas there, we were feeling quite lonely and disappointed that we could not afford to be home in Saskatchewan with our family that year. It had not snowed much at all in December, but while we four were walking to the church from our nearby little home, the sound of the church bells ringing was heavenly and the snowflakes were gently falling. I still get goosebumps just remembering the feeling. At church we were greeting Darren’s young friend’s parents who lived in Wynndel. They are from Germany and did not attend church regularly, but of course this was Christmas. Realizing they may just be going home after church to their empty house, as we were going to be doing, we invited them over for a visit. They accepted and we had a wonderful time of fellowship and getting to know some virtual strangers. Our children were absolutely thrilled with the few small gifts they received that year. That is the Christmas that I recall with special fondness!

As for my husband, he says BAH HUMBUG!

AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL.

Fourth Week at Marble Falls Nov 2010

2010-11-29T14:36:00.000-08:00

LAST WEEK OF NOVEMBER, MARBLE FALLS 2010

The evening before the Winkler concrete crew left, the Board Members of Camp of the Hills invited all of the volunteers on the property, namely, those 16 people, our RV crew of 12, and 6 RVIC couples, for supper at Mel’s again. There were 50 in all for the Cajun gumbo supper with soup, rice and desserts. Also present were four of the Board Members as well as Lacey, a young lady who had been a camp counselor for several seasons.

Mel had a different (older) promotional DVD to show us. It was very enlightening for the Winkler crew and it showed what hallowed ground they built this concrete slab on. Lacey was asked to say a few words about her experiences as a camp counselor. She told us it was a fairly difficult “job”, but extremely rewarding. She said that some young prospective counselors figure they will try it for only one month, and in every such case, they have ALWAYS stayed for the full term. Last year was the first time they have had a camp counselor from China. There has never been a counselor from Canada. Mel gave us a challenge: get him TWO camp counselors from Canada for next year. Counselors are between the ages of 18 and 26. Anyone who wishes to find out more information regarding how to apply to be a camp counselor can find the application criteria on the Camp of the Hills website, click on “About Camp of the Hills”.

John and I were happy to be working exclusively renovating Miss Kaki’s cottage. He laid the laminate flooring in the large closet room, which will also double as her grandson’s sleeping quarters when he visits. I painted the bathroom and then John put the tubsurround on and laid the ceramic tiles. I fastened the newly painted baseboards with the air nailer and did the caulking around the windows and baseboards. John had installed the kitchen cabinets and was putting on the finishing touches.

The other men started straightening up the ground around the new floor and making way for the pouring of a veranda. We stopped by after work on Monday and they were still making forms and pounding in stakes, which did not really look like something seniors should be having to do at this stage of the game. However, if the project is to be ready for a full slate of volunteers for January and they expect to have a building to build, this difficult work has to be done.

American Thanksgiving was Thursday and everyone was on the move “home for the holidays”. Although the weather was over 80 degrees for the first part of the week, the weatherman promised a cold front for Thanksgiving.

We were free to work on the holiday. The ladies, all of whom are over 63 years of age, found themselves doing something they never dreamed would be in the line of duty for MDS! We confirmed to each other that it was not on any of our bucket lists!! The steel workers had finally lifted up and welded the steel beams for the first building. They were off for Thanksgiving long weekend, and our mission, should we choose to accept it, was to stain the four largest beams and the welds, up on 20 foot scissor lifts. Hesitant Henrietta and Reluctant Linda were not too keen on this idea, but we did manage to paint some of the lower parts of the beams, mastering using the lifts. Up-for-anything Agnes, Mighty Mary and Eager Ena were ready willing and raring to go, and with some assistance from Mike, managed to do all the apexes of the eyebeams (that’s steelworker lingo), on their lift. We all spent the day being steel workers. In the morning, it was around 75 degrees Fahrenheit, so warm that we needed sweat bands and looked forward to going back to the RVs at noon to change into some summer clothes. That cold front the weatherman had promised came in PRECISELY at 12:45, so that by the time we went back at 1:00 p.m., we were putting on jackets. It was uncanny! By the time we quit at 3:30, we were looking for warm gloves and winter coats!

Black Friday, we all went to town for breakfast. Stores were all open, but restaurants serving breakfast were few and far between. In the afternoon, we each headed our own direction to get the specials we were looking for. We needed a new flash drive for our computer and also found a wireless mouse, and John could not resist a cordless 18 volt screw gun complete with 50 bits for $19.99!

Saturday, we took a drive in our truck, with Marv and Henrietta along for a tour of Burnet (we were advised it is said “Burnet: learn it, durn it”!), Bertram, Georgetown, and around back to Smithwick. Lovely day for a drive. We also stopped to do a bit of shopping at Old Navy in the large Georgetown Mall.

Last Sunday, Pastor Hank at Cowboy Church advised that the Mennonites were leading their singing next Sunday. That was news to us, but we were game. We led their music worship with 8 old-fashioned country hymns. It was a blessing to our group as well as their very small congregation. There does not appear to be the interest in this small cowboy church as there was in Beaumont last year, and no apparent reason for it. Their pastor is one of the best we have encountered in this area.

Texans are crushed because their Longhorns lost the big football game. We know how they feel… But it was a good game anyway.

Third week at Marble Falls 2010

2010-11-22T16:54:00.000-08:00

We all finally got to meet Mike and Ena Baldwin, who arrived from Miramichi, N.B. on the weekend. This couple took advantage of the offer of MDS to try out a Senior RV Project without having an R.V., as Camp of the Hills has several fully furnished cabins available for use for special visitors. Mike and Ena have been on many other regular MDS projects, but the RV Project will be a new experience for them.

We attended the Cowboy Church again this Sunday and were pleased to be invited by Jennie, the guest musician, to sing several songs with her. What a blessing that was for the four of us who enjoy singing. Pastor Hank Wilson also had our leader tell his congregation what the Mennonites were doing in their midst, and thanked us for our presence.

Fifteen men and one cook arrived in three vehicles, with a skreeter, from Winkler, Mb., on Sunday night to pour the footings and the concrete floor for the main Lodge Building. The group consisted of a contractor with several crew skilled at doing concrete work, a plumber, a real estate salesman, a few retired farmers and some strapping young men, all eager to get to work. They had a monumental task ahead of them and were equal to it. There was MUCH site prep work still required and the goal was to have the 1000 feet of grade beam and 94 x 110' concrete floor finished in five days. They pounded the stakes into the compacted crushed rock, leveled and covered the mounds of rock with heavy yellow plastic with duct tape to hold it together, and tied the rebar in place. To the astonishment of everyone, they advised they would be ready for the concrete on Wednesday. The footings were poured on Wednesday. When our Project Director called to arrange for the pumper truck and concrete for the floor, he found that the ONLY time the two could be co-ordinated was at 4:00 a.m. on Thursday. The 9,420 square feet of floor was poured and finished in 19 hours, from 4:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. It was nothing short of a miracle, which we all had desperately prayed for, to get that huge job accomplished. There were some pretty exhausted fellows. They slept in the dorms for campers and were fed in the temporary camp kitchen by Erna and two of our RV ladies. When asked what the value of the volunteer work for this job would be worth, the reply was at least $70,000.00! The contractor also commented that if he would have been offered this job for pay to be done in the time constraints required, he would have said it could not be done! With God, nothing is impossible.

Mel treated the crew to a pontoon boat ride on Friday afternoon and they were able to spend some time enjoying the scenery and relaxing a bit before they headed back home at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday. The Highlander local newspaper printed a very nice article in the informing the local inhabitants of the participation of the Canadian volunteers at the Camp of the Hills.

Staining and varnishing the new kitchen cupboards were first on the agenda for the ladies this week. John and two other men finished tearing apart the very small bathroom and replacing the damaged shower enclosure with a 54 inch bathtub. While the other fellows put in the tub and new gyproc, John laid the laminate flooring in the kitchen/livingroom so that the cabinets could be installed.

The baseboards were all given two coats of paint up at Mel’s shop. In addition, the kitchen/livingroom ceiling and walls were painted. Miss Kaki was totally thrilled with each step. We gave her a new name: Miss Kaki-Gopher, because she made many trips the 10 miles to town to pick out cupboards, countertop, tub, tubsurround, etc. etc. etc.

Friday evening, more than 2.5 million twinkling lights turned Marble Falls Lakeside Park into an enchanted winter wonderland (with no snow???) in the lighting of the annual Walkway of Lights, with the first appearance of Santa Claus. There was also a parade which was not as great for watchers as it could have been, as it was in the dark. Anything that was lit up was very pretty, but where there were bands and marchers, you couldn’t see them, and can you imagine trying to find candies thrown from floats in the dark? The entry that intrigued us the most was the group of about 30 seniors who called themselves “synchronized lawn chair marchers”. They marched with folded up lawn chairs with lights on them, doing all kinds of motions in time with music. It was really neat.

This weekend was the monthly Trade Days at Fredericksburg. As John had found some treasures there last year, it was on our list of places we wanted to go. We drove with Ben and Mary Klassen from Winkler in their Honda Civic, and as we found that most of the prices at the Trade Days were “out of sight”, we only stayed an hour and a half. There was a small private yard sale about a block down the highway and there we found some useful things that were garage sale prices. Our Project Director had said that if we ever saw a bread maker for about $5 or $10, we should get it for him. There was one there for $3.00. Haven’t heard if it works yet… Then we went on to Fredericksburg and while the men toured the National Museum of the Pacific War, Mary and I did Main Street. The city is a major tourist trap in Texas and the tourists were out in full force. It was very enjoyable checking out the shops, even though many of them were for Texas millionaire pocket-books!

Second week in Marble Falls Nov. 2010

2010-11-15T18:43:00.000-08:00

SECOND WEEK IN MDS SERVICE AT MARBLE FALLS

Our Project Manager couple here are both licensed pilots. Accordingly, when they learned that the San Antonio Air Show was on this weekend, they asked if anyone else would like to go. It was at Lackland Air Force Base and admission and parking were free. We all piled into the MDS van to travel the 120 miles to San Antonio. For outings such as this, the MDS van is available for our use if we pay for the gas. We went on Saturday, a very hot day. None of us had enough foresight to take our lawn chairs or sunscreen, so we all ended up with sore necks and burned faces from looking up. It was a fantastic show, with a Viper Four-Ship Flyby, F-15 Strike Eagle Flyby, Warbirds Demonstration, F/A 18 Hornet, U.S. Army Golden Knights, and USAF Thunderbirds Demonstration, just to mention a few. Of course there was a tremendous turnout by the public and everyone was security-checked at the entrance to the airfield. We all agreed that none of us had ever stood in such a long line-up for such a long time, but it was well worth it. Naturally, being an official Air Force function, it was done in a very orderly fashion.

Last weekend, Camp of the Hills had its first ever family retreat for campers who had attended as children 15 years ago. It was a very exciting time. It was promoted by a Camp Counsellor from 15 years ago with her group that she had led at that time. Living in the inner city, the young families are experiencing the usual struggles of young families and came to recapture the experience they had as campers with their families. The camp is hoping that this will be the beginning of a whole new chapter of campers every year.

Sunday found us at the First Baptist Church of Marble Falls. It is a huge church and has a fairly new very young, passionate pastor. We came away greatly blessed by his message. This church is very involved with their community.

Sunday afternoon, most of us enjoyed an afternoon picking and shelling pecans out in the sunshine on the picnic table, and the men convinced Mary she would like to make some pecan pies for our Thursday night pot luck.

Back to work on Monday. No sooner had the ladies again started working with their sorting plumbing supplies than Mel showed up with a more urgent task for us… a much more strenuous task! The concrete was due to be poured into the styrofoam forms in the first building the next morning. Before then, we were to lay 10 foot strips of canvas tarp all along the inside of the 60 x 80 foot building, as well as on the outside where there were concrete pads poured for verandas, so that there was no overspray of concrete onto the concrete already finished. However, these 10 foot strips of canvas were still in the form of a 10,000 square foot circus tent! It was our job to unroll the 4 sections of tent and cut them into 10 foot strips. Luckily there was a gravel parking lot accessible to accomplish this. By the time this canvas was all cut up, we were done in! Then we had to lay them out, as the concrete was coming at 8:00 a.m. Thankfully a couple of the men came and helped us move the rolls of canvas over to the building and lay them in place. It was probably the hardest day any of the ladies had in their service with MDS! We were very happy to get back to sorting plumbing on Tuesday. By 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, that part of Mel’s shop looked better than it ever had, complete with vacuumed floor. We were mighty proud of what we had done.

Meanwhile, the men spent their days getting the footings ready for the crew to come in and pour next week tying steel for beams and pilings, another very demanding task, John says not for the weak and feeble!!

Tuesday evening some of the Board Members of Camp of the Hills prepared a soup supper for us and the RVIC group at Mel’s home. After supper, Mel gave us a presentation about the camp and its history and showed us a video which they use for publicity purposes. It was a lovely evening and they are hoping we can all get together for an evening of song before we leave.

Next on the agenda for the ladies was making the “Big Ark” cottage liveable for Miss Kaki, the Camp’s volunteer co-ordinator, She has been hired full time and now lives on site instead of commuting 3 days a week. It started out that we were to paint the three room cottage, but in accordance with Murphy’s Law, there was much more upgrading required: a new shower enclosure which turned into a bathtub with shower instead, removal of carpeting and installation of laminate, removal and replacement of kitchen cupboards to allow for a small cook stove, and finding mold and leakage underneath the vanity; nothing new in the life of an MDS volunteer (or anyone renovating, for that matter). It will keep us busy for a while - we really have nothing else to do while we are waiting for the site prep.

HAPPY 13TH BIRTHDAY KEELY!

First week in Marble Falls Nov 2010

2010-11-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

Former Lodge which burned down

Where the Lodge Used to Be

New start in Marble Falls

Somewhere along the road while we were driving the second last day, we lost one of the small windows in the bedroom of the R.V. along the highway. It must have simply popped out. John taped in a piece of cardboard until we can get a new one.

There is no doubt that the hill country around Marble Falls, Texas, is some of the most beautiful scenery in America. It was like coming home to drive down the hill to the MDS campsite where we will spend the next month. By Saturday evening, all of the volunteers had arrived. There are 6 couples, all Canadian. We have become friends with two of the couples on other projects, have met one of the couples previously and have briefly become acquainted with the Project Directors on another occasion. This is the first Senior RV experience for the one couple from Winkler, Mb.

When we first joined the Senior RV Program, we were advised that the key requirement of a volunteer is flexibility. This is certainly true here in that we were expecting to begin putting up metal interior walls in one of the two new buildings that are being constructed to replace the former Lodge. Upon arrival, we could see the project is way behind schedule and that the concrete slab for first building had just been poured. We will be lucky if it is ready for interior walls in two weeks!

Accordingly, we went to “Plan B”. The site preparation where the Lodge used to be had not even begun. As crew foreman, John shot in the elevations and determined that 7 feet of fill would be required on the west end of the building site!

There was heavy equipment on the site available for use and two of our volunteers had some experience driving the dump truck, backhoe and packer. They were both in their glory, never dreaming they would be playing with these big machines for days on end. We learned that to run some of this heavy equipment was on our Project Director’s “Bucket List”!

The other men were put to work doing odd jobs around the camp. On Monday, the ladies had a new double washroom building by the soccer field to paint, inside and out. When that was done, we cleaned up the “Lewis Cabin”, a two room rustic cabin with twelve double bunks and a full bath on each side. We are expecting a group of volunteers from a church in Winkler, Mb., to arrive on November 14th to do the concrete floor for the new main building. The Winkler volunteers will be staying in that cabin while they are here.

When the ladies ran out of work painting and cleaning, they were assigned the important task of sorting out many boxes of plumbing supplies which had been donated to the camp. That was an interesting job, as about all we could do was sort them into the proper sizes. We had a few good laughs for the afternoon, as none of us are familiar with the various connectors and fittings, and there were so many different kinds.

Our first pot luck of the month was Thursday night, and as usual, there was a great feast and more than enough food for everyone.

Some members of the volunteer group known as RVICS (Retired Volunteers in Christian Service), are also camped in RVs at the top of the hill and are lending their assistance to the camp for maintenance and upkeep.

The weather this week was up and down like a yo-yo. The weekend was beautiful. The day after we arrived, Saturday, we enjoyed a two hour pontoon boat ride in 80 degree weather. What a lovely afternoon! It was hot enough to enjoy a leisurely Sunday lunch on the deck at River City Grille overlooking the Colorado River. Monday we were painting in sweltering 85 degree heat. Tuesday, it was cloudy and 65. It rained that night and was so windy it felt like our RV was going to end up in the lake! Wednesday morning it was just above freezing and then it rained all day. Thursday was a nice sunny day again.

There are several large pecan trees near our campers and one evening we went out and picked an ice cream pail full. Pecans in the roadside stands are $10.00 a pound!

We discovered Hallowe’en in Texas is just as much for the adults as for the children. Hundreds of costumed adults partied in the streets of Marble Falls. At lunch on Sunday, the waiters and waitresses were all costumed. Our waiter was a Mutant Ninja Turtle – I asked him if it was easy being green. He laughed and said “Not really, the green keeps coming off.” Our son Darren knows all about that from the time he won tickets for the Grey Cup Semi-Finals with the Riders by painting himself green and appearing in the CKBI parking lot in -15 degree temperatures, with snow falling, dressed only in cut-offs and work boots!

We have not been overly impressed with the T.V. we get down here. We can pick up about a dozen channels, a third of which are Mexican (Spanish). However, we were thrilled to have a front row seat (in our R.V.) Thursday evening for an hour long Statler Brothers special. It was absolutely awesome! We also watched an excellent documentary about Gulf War casualties and the emergency care they receive. It was a real eye-opener.

Back to Beaumont

2010-11-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

Back to Beaumont

Finally we have arrived in Texas. When we had driven through last year, there were very beautiful multicolored potted tiny chrysanthemums at various plant stands. This year, we stopped at one of the first stands, and came away with two pots – one bright yellow and one dark red, each about 18 inches in diameter, on sale that day for $5.00 each! They fit nicely into the truck box which John had made, and we will surely enjoy them in “our yard” for the 4 months we can keep them down here.

While traveling in the evening on Tuesday, we noted some ugly storm clouds gathering to the south and east of us, with the odd streak of lightning. The next day, as we drove, it was apparent in the ditches that there had been heavy rain. Stopping at Lone Oak for coffee, we learned that there had been a tornado in the area, with golf size hail in some places and pea sized hail in others.

As we drove on, we noted that Americans are mighty big on pumpkins. There are hundreds of them in every school yard we see waiting for upcoming Hallowe’en.

The owners of the storage unit were happy to see us. They said they had some hail there as well this summer. It appears our awning may have some hail damage but we won’t know the extent until we roll it out. We stayed the first night in the storage yard, and enjoyed watching Arnie Armadillo rooting around in the yard just after dark.

There was time the first day for us to make a trip to Newton to visit with my cat lady friend and see her new house. Unfortunately she still has some problems with shoddy workmanship in her home, and also problems with harassment from her neighbours. She was delighted to see us.

We pass by all kinds of flea markets and there is little point in stopping, as there is virtually nothing I need, either at home or in the R.V. However we did stop at one very interesting little place just out of Jasper and there was a bobblehead Aunt Jemima piggy bank which will be perfect for my Aunt Jemima collection…only $2.00.

We left our R.V. at Jasper while we traveled back to Beaumont to see our friends at the Ben Rogers Welcome Centre who were so helpful to us last year. Then we checked in on Miss Jane in the Alzheimers wing of the Care Home. She has deteriorated considerably since we left her in February. I had a little visit with her and left her a couple of photos and a stuffed animal and can only trust that God is holding her in the palm of his hand as she lives out her life in that facility. Travelling through Cheek, we stopped in to see Miss Orma and Mr. John, our two favorite homeowners, both of whom were happy and healthy and thrilled to see us. It was great to see quite a few more new homes have been built in that poor area since we left.

Texas weather has been superb. It was 80 degrees for 3 days, one of which we understand it snowed in Prince Albert.

Well, now I have to tell you my “turkey” story. The Walmart greeter at Jasper welcomed us inside the door. A few seconds later, she hurried after us, saying she forgot to tell us that there was a big sale on turkeys. She said some people were going out with 6 and 8 turkeys. I told her I would be going out with the same turkey I came in with. We all laughed. As John waited for me at the checkout, he learned that the older round gentleman sitting beside him had been at a family Thanksgiving in Newton, Tx. where we had been invited two years ago. When I was done at the checkout and joined John, this fellow’s wife came over with her cart as well and she showed me the price of the turkey she had just bought. It was a large turkey for under $4.00!!! Anyone who knows Linda knows that 25 cents a pound is simply too good a deal to pass up. So despite the fact that John thinks turkey once a year at Christmas is one time too many, that we just had turkey for our Thanksgiving at home and that our oven in the R.V. is too small to cook a turkey, a small one was purchased. I can probably make it for a pot luck and our friend Nettie won’t mind putting it in her oven,. Went in with one turkey, came out with two…

Crossing the Border Oct. 22nd

2010-11-05T18:24:00.000-07:00

CROSSING THE BORDER

The day came when we were scheduled to cross the border – October 22nd. We said our sad goodbyes to Warrior Jake and his wife Rita.

The border crossing was excellent. No delays and no problems.

The truck runs just great on the highway. I am very impressed with the running lights at night. It lights up like a Christmas tree!

It seems to be election season in the U.S. as well as in Manitoba. There are election signs EVERYWHERE.

Driving through “corn country”, the combines were out in full force, well into the evening.

As we drove south, we found a fantastic Classic Country radio station. We were disappointed to be losing the station as we drove on. However, on pressing the “seek” button on the radio, there was another station with the same music, and another. All through North and South Dakota and Nebraska, we enjoyed our favorite country classics and never heard the same song twice all day.

It was interesting to see Buchanan a short distance from Melville, as in Saskatchewan. In South Dakota, we noted that Minnehaha is a hop, skip and jump away from Humboldt. That’s one we don’t have…

We stayed our first night in a motel where we had stayed two years ago when the starter went on our old truck. There were just as many pheasant hunters in the motel, but we didn’t witness any problems with all the hunters and dogs this time.

One strange sight I noticed as we drove was a farm with a large body of water in the yard. There were several cows hanging around the edge of the water - nothing strange about that, but one cow was right in the middle of the water, up to its belly. I don’t know if it was stuck, or what…

John noted that Poverty Valley, South Dakota appeared to be ineptly named, with many huge mansions on the hillside.

The weather has been great for traveling. It was 74 to 78 degrees.

When we saw “Yesterday’s Café” coming up on a sign coming into Yankton, N.D., we knew that was where we would be eating our lunch. The 50’s décor was very impressive, the staff was superb and the food was excellent. John usually gives waitresses a hard time, and our feisty little waitress, Becky, was ready for him, returning as good as he gave. She got an extra tip out of that…

What a refreshing sight we encountered driving into Yankton. There were hundreds of high school kids running, in gym clothes, everywhere we looked, in the park alongside the highway. There was obviously some kind of a meet happening where all of the schools had come together, but no one we asked seemed to know exactly what it was. It was an excellent indication American high school students are getting good phys ed training.

Another interesting sight was a pumpkin orchard. Hundreds of pumpkins were laying in the field and you could go and pay for a pumpkin and pick your own.

Love this country – almost every home alongside the road has a verandah, with pillars, and at least one rocking chair, with someone usually sitting in it.

Saturday night brought us to Hesston, Kansas, the birthplace of Mennonite Disaster Service. Last year we stopped in at Hesston briefly. This year we decided to stay over and attend the Hesston College Mennonite Church. The congregation was extremely friendly and we were even invited to a home for lunch afterwards.

With the publicity about the bed bug infestations these days, we have checked out our motel rooms before paying for them. So far they have been clean and bug-less. Apparently bed bugs have even been found in motels in Brandon…

As we are gadding about heading for Jasper, Texas, our daughter is welcoming a new feline into our home. She found one she wanted at the SPCA and the only way we have met him is in e-mailed pictures. It appears Minx is settling in nicely. He’s a mature long haired tabby with a little stubby tail. Sounds like our dog Abby and the new cat have made a good start, and we look forward to having a cat again when we get home for December. My motto has always been: A house without a cat is not a home.

Texas-bound - Langenburg and Brandon

2010-10-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

Texas-Bound

The day has arrived. As we try to remember everything we are going to need to take along, I check off the items on my list as they are packed. The passports, the pills, the border-crossing letters from MDS, and some grocery items we are not able to get in the U.S., for example, Harmonie margarine, decent peanut butter and Cheese Whiz, and Dristan tablets for colds.

Our little Maltese dog has known for weeks we are leaving and she has been glued to my side the past few days. No dogs are allowed on the MDS sites; besides, this is John’s time that he does not have to share my attention with the dog…

We enjoyed having the grandchildren over for sleepovers the last weekend. It is comforting to know that we will be home for December. We have committed ourselves to volunteer for November in Marble Falls. We are flying back from Austin on December 3rd, returning on the 27th and then have to move our RV from Marble Falls to New Iberia, LA, where we are stationed for January and February, 2011.

My husband is very happy to be travelling down the road in his “new” 2001 GMC 3500 Sierra SLE dually with a 6.6 Duramax diesel and an Allison transmission. He has realized for some time that we needed a bigger truck to pull our large RV and this year found what he was looking for. I was hoping for maybe “a step up” from our three-quarter ton diesel, but this is the “full meal deal”. Hopefully the benefits will outweigh my objections to having a dually 4 x 4. We toyed with the idea of hauling our Toyota car behind the truck, but decided against it. Time will tell if that decision was a good one. Riding like the one-ton it is, it certainly is not easy for me to write notes as we drive on these bumpy Saskatchewan roads!

We arrived in Foam Lake in time to catch the local coffee shop packed with farmers discussing this year’s harvest. It was a little late for lunch, but we were hungry.

Langenburg was our destination for our first stop. Things are quite laid back at my Mom’s house. She retires early and gets up early as well. Saturday evening we were invited to Ken and Miss Jackie’s for a feast to thank friends who helped with their threshing this past summer. Mom had been there for Thanksgiving the weekend before. She is hard of hearing and does not enjoy it when everyone is talking at once, so she declined to come with us for the supper. We arrived home at 7:30 p.m. to find her in bed already!

The wind was so cold this week, it already felt like snow.

We got to catch one more Roughrider game before leaving Saskatchewan, even though it was quite disappointing. How many of us watch the game and wonder why we haven’t made the effort to enter free at Safeway for the prizes they award when we get a touchdown? As John always says, no tickee, no laundley.

Arriving in Brandon, we are visiting with John’s brother, Jake. He and his wife have just returned from a week-long Prostate Cancer Canada Network Annual Meeting in Toronto. Jake is 78 and has been living with prostate cancer for 14 years, and diabetes for several years. Five years ago, the cancer spread to his bones. He has had surgery and every treatment available and is now taking a type of chemo, a combination of Zomeda and Prednisone. The doctors cannot understand why his bone deterioration has apparently been stalled - whether it is his excellent attitude, or a result of the Omega 3-6-9, calcium and Vitamin D three times a day, and Vitamin B1. He has always had a VERY positive outlook on his illness and it is certain that this has contributed to his longevity. Jake indicated his reason for attending the convention was not for anything that could be done for him, because he feels it is too late for him, but rather to learn what was coming down the pipe that he could share with his sons and grandsons and friends. He was very excited to learn about the innovations in prostate cancer surgery using robotic lazer treatment and bring the information back to his prostate cancer group in Brandon.

For your information, Movember, an organization that started in Australia, has taken as its cause prostate cancer awareness programs. They raised over $20M in Australia, then came to Canada and last year raised $7.9M in Canada for prostate cancer awareness research projects. They sponsored this annual conference for all prostate groups across Canada. “Movember” is prostate cancer awareness month. Men are letting their mustache grow and ladies are encouraged to wear false mustaches for prostate cancer awareness. When you see a two-tone blue sticker on a car, comparable to the pink ribbon for breast cancer, or a lady with a false mustache, be aware this is with respect to prostate cancer.

We are pleased to enjoy our visit for this week and make our way south Friday morning, October 22nd.

Shopper article leaving home for Nov. MDS posting

2010-10-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

WE’RE OFF TO MARBLE FALLS, TEXAS

Most of the fall season projects with MDS Senior RV Program begin October 4, 2010. However, the project that we have been assigned to starts on November 1st. We will be returning to the “hill country” of Marble Falls, Texas. The RV site at Camp of the Hills, where we had parked in spring of 2009, was by far the most beautiful scenery of any we have encountered since we have been with the Senior RV Program.

This summer, we had learned of the disastrous fire which destroyed the beautiful main Lodge at the Camp of the Hills. Googling “Camp of the Hills” and seeing the structure in flames was horrific. The building was insured; however, the insurance will only cover a portion of the losses.

Camp of the Hills caters to inner city homeless street children, sponsored by various area churches. MDS has volunteered to provide the workers to build 3 new buildings to replace the Lodge. Formerly, the Lodge’s main floor housed the business office of the Camp Director (the only paid employee), washrooms and the huge dining hall and totally outfitted kitchens. We recall admiring the awesome gigantic rock fireplace in the dining hall which is now gone. Camp Counsellors’ quarters, which also housed a full storehouse of all sizes and types of clothing that young campers might require, were on the lower level, as well as the nursing station with closets full of all the laundry and cleaning supplies for the camp. They also lost all their audio-visual equipment and computers.

The website advises that despite the loss, with the help of a lot of people who had a heart for the camp, they were able to accommodate their campers this summer.

Here at home, all our yard work is done, garbage hauled to the dump, everything put away for winter, our annual little farewell party with our neighbours was enjoyed by all…we’re ready to leave a bit ahead of time. My Mom will enjoy another visit en route, and we also want to spend a couple of days with our favorite brother, Jake, in Brandon. He has been battling prostate cancer for 13 years now and his doctors cannot figure out why he is not in more pain, with what they see on his scans for the past year. He is a testimony as to how a positive attitude in such an illness can be your best asset. We expected him to be failing when we returned from the south earlier this year, and they were just returning from a Carribean cruise with their daughter! They were totally thrilled with the VIP treatment they got at every hand, using the “transporter chair” which allowed him to participate in all of the activities without tiring out his legs too much. He even went scuba diving for the first time in his 79 years.

It will be nice not to have to drive in snow going down. It should take 4 days to get to Jasper, Texas, where our RV is stored. We have allowed time to stop in the Beaumont area and visit some of our friends from our last term. Does Mr. John still live in his house? How is Miss Jane doing in the Alzheimers wing of the Nursing Home? The girls from the Ben Rogers Welcome Centre will certainly remember us! They were very hospitable about letting me use their telephone with my phone card. This year we have a Magic Jack telephone which can be used on the computer, with free long distance. It has worked out well.

Next week’s article will be done on the road. We hope you enjoy your trip as you share our travels.

First newspaper article for P.A. Shopper Oct. 2010

2010-10-24T20:11:00.001-07:00

Hello – we’re back to share our summer with you, before getting into our upcoming MDS experiences. We have greatly appreciated all the positive comments about our articles last winter and hope you enjoy coming to Texas with us in two weeks.

Aaah – summer in Saskatchewan. It started out like summer, but we soon wondered what happened to the good old summers we used to have!

I have always thought it would be neat to spend a week in Texas in summer, just to experience some nice HOT weather. It was always windy on the Gulf Coast. The residents informed us that the wind is a tremendous blessing down there; I had never considered that if it were not for the wind, they would not be able to tolerate the heat in summer. After a week, I probably would be plenty ready to go back to a Saskatchewan summer! Recently, we received an e-mail from MDS friends in California advising it was 103 degrees there. We could have used a day or two of that, at least…

After doing renovations to our home, which meant I could not have a garden last year, I was excited to be landscaping and getting ready in spring to plant a small garden again. That included bringing out all of the yard ornaments, and our two water fountains which did not get used last year.

Putting the clothesline back up was first on my agenda and to my great delight, John quickly had that task accomplished.

In May, our very beloved purebred Himalayan cat, Gizmo, insisted on being let outside after dark, never to return. He had been acting a bit strangely and it appears he had gone away to die in peace. We certainly miss his beautiful furry face at our patio door.

My mission this summer was to ensure our three grandchildren have some special holiday memories with Nana and Grampa from their childhood. Our family always spent most of the summer at Madge Lake where we had a cabin. Nowadays, young families have such hectic lives. Both parents are busy with their jobs and barely even get two days off at the same time to enjoy any kind of holiday with their kids.

We offered to take the grandchildren for 10 days to my Mom’s in Langenburg, Sk., as there were two sets of festivities scheduled. First was the goal of my cousin from Tennessee who comes up to his family farm every summer, to have 10 threshing machines running at one time in 2010. John was his “straw boss” for the occasion.

Over the years, Ken and Jaqueline have welcomed and entertained the local residents with a day of threshing, visiting and an old fashioned picnic several times during the summer. This weekend brought over 300 people to the farm to share in the old time festivities. Included in the roster of entertainment, our 12 year old granddaughter, Keely, sang two songs with my accompaniment and everyone said she was wonderful. Dressed in a pretty heritage dress complete with a hat, she sang “In the Highways In the Hedges” and “Let the Sun Shine In”. Bryton, who just turned 9 while we were on holidays, looked just like a young lad out of Wind at My Back, in his pair of overalls, striped T-shirt and a flat, brimmed tweed hat. Five year old Emily charmed all of the old-timers and captured Miss Jacqueline’s heart.

Everyone who attended tremendously enjoyed the day and not only did Ken achieve his goal of “10 in 2010”, but he also was proud to see the full page write up of the occasion in the Western Producer!

We then stayed the following week to take in Laff ‘n Linger Days, which only happens every 5 years in my home town. Great-Nana’s one bedroom senior duplex was hard-pressed to accommodate three extra adults, three children and a dog. John decided this “zoo” would be too much for him and there was work to do at home, so he left and came back for the weekend. The rest of us played “musical beds” with the hideabed and the tent and someone sleeping with Great-Nana. Keely wanted to see what Manitoba looked like, so we made the short trip to Russell. They spent many hours in the town pool and got a taste of living in small town Saskatchewan. Bryton slept over at Uncle Paul’s for a few nights, and would walk the three blocks back to Mom’s in the morning, with his pyjamas slung over his shoulder, just a singing away. It was neat to hear him comment “I love Langenburg”

Laff ‘N Linger Days included a very large heritage parade (for a small town of 1500 people). My cousin’s wife insisted she needed us to help her with the Mack Family Float. It was a large hay wagon pulled by an old tractor. John and I had made them a large sign for the entrance to their farm yard, as they did not have one. We put the sign on the back of the float and it looked wonderful! Miss Jacqueline, a cousin’s wife from B.C., and the children and I were all on the float, dressed in our heritage costumes. We were thrilled to win first prize in the heritage division! John and my Mom were “parade watchers”. All in all, our summer holiday with the kids was all we had hoped it would be and we have the pictures to prove it!!! Needless to say, it was also a summer holiday my 87 year old Mom will always cherish.

Pictures from summer 2010

2010-08-18T20:09:00.000-07:00

Summer 2010

2010-08-05T06:34:00.000-07:00

It looks like I must have been too busy to blog at the end of our last MDS tour, as there were none past the middle of February… I was still sending articles to the newspaper and it was too much.

We arrived home on March 11th, stopping in Brandon on the way. We were delighted to see John's brother Jake hale and healthy as when we last saw him.

I was excited to get back home to enjoy my new sun room, see the kids and grandchildren and Abby and Gizmo.

The end of April, we made a trip to Edmonton to see our old friend, Charlie Dixon, and his family. His wife, Joan had passed away suddenly from ovarian cancer in January and we had not been able to attend her funeral. My Mom agreed to travel with us, as we were also going to visit some of my relatives in Edmonton, and there was a new great grandchild she hadn’t met yet. We had a great trip! Also visited with relatives from Mom’s side of the family in Sylvan Lake where John’s sister Anne lives.

Unfortunately, John ended up in hospital at Red Deer with internal bleeding and Mom and I got to do most of the visiting! Thankfully, he was released in 2 days with the diagnosis of bleeding caused by taking Alleve for his arthritis. It may be that it was because he doesn’t eat breakfast and you can’t take Alleve on an empty stomach. It certainly did work for the arthritis pain though!!! More pills and he was on the mend.

We enjoyed having Jake and Rita spend a week with us in May. We joined Grace Mennonite Church in Prince Albert in May. We have enjoyed attending church there and decided we may as well become an official part of their congregation.

On May 19th, we were distraught to have our cat disappear. He had not been feeling that well, and because we know after 9 years, if he was alive, that little black face would be peering in our door in the morning, we did not make any efforts to find him. He was certainly an enjoyable addition to our family for that 9 years. Probably the nicest cat we ever had.

We made another trip to Manitoba in June for Jake and Rita’s anniversary and had a little visit with MDS friends Bert and Doreen in Winkler. Then when we got home, we enjoyed a visit from Andre and Suzette from St. Jerome, Quebec, for three days. It was interesting to see how well our two older grandchildren, who are in French Immersion, could converse with “real” French people!!

Jeanie’s Mom was hospitalized with cancer in mid June and passed away on June 24th. That same week, we learned that John’s brother Hank’s wife, May Braun, had passed away in Didsbury, so we attended her funeral along with Jake and Rita. It was nice to see some of the rest of the family for a change.

In between all this traveling, John was working on finishing the outside of the house and sundeck. I was very happy to see the original plan for the deck changed to accommodate the gazebo and lawn swing. What a lot of work though. The whole back of the house looks like a brand new gorgeous home, while the front and sides are still the old house.

We built a new fence on the west side of our property and revamped the back yard and I planted a small garden. The end of July was slated for holidays at Langenburg including my cousin Ken’s mission of having 10 antique threshing machines going at one time in 2010. Mission accomplished, and he was proud to have a full page dedicated to the event in the Western Producer!! Then there was Laff‘Linger Daze to stay for. We took our three grandchildren, as their babysitter was having surgery. John came back home for the week to get some things done and I stayed at my Mom’s with the kids. My goal was to make them some wonderful memories, and I think that goal was accomplished as well. We had a great time. Shari had holidays as well, so we got to take Abby too. Participating in the Mack family float in the Parade was a highlight for us all. We helped decorate the float, and it won first prize in the Heritage category. All three children were right “into” the whole process in their heritage costumes! John and I had made a yard sign for my cousin, Ken and his wife, and it was just perfect to put on the back of the float.

We certainly had our share of inclement weather and rain this summer, but thankfully there were enough hot sunny days to still get a nice sun tan,. The garden “took off” while we were in Langenburg and I have lots of peas, beans and cucumbers, and raspberries. The tomatoes are just coming now. And the Lavatera are gorgeous!! The grass seems to need cutting every third day…

So, that’s a catch up from the Brauns. I will send the pictures in the next post.

Second week of February at Cheek

2010-02-18T20:03:00.000-08:00

Looks like I'm getting lazy here. I am attaching my latest newspaper article for our blog as well. Am having trouble finding the pictures so will attach them when I can find them...

We can see the light at the end of the tunnel on Mr. John’s house. John and I have been working on this house finishing the baseboards and window trim. There are so many finishing details to do yet. Thankfully we have one couple who has experience at laying floors, and they have completed all the flooring that needed to be done.

The King house was a major disaster when our crew arrived. I did not see it until most of the clean-up had been done, and apparently only pictures can do justice as to how bad it was! Our men have been cutting out the bottom of the gyproc so that the house can be re-wired. Re-wiring not been in the work order, but when they checked out the electrical, they found a very sad state of aluminum wiring. SETIO “found” sufficient funds to provide the material to wire the house. Our Office Manager, Mary Ann, took on the task of painting KILZ on the top half of the walls. New kitchen cabinets were also not in the plan for the King house. However, when our ladies saw what a huge difference there was with the drastic improvements in the rest of the house, it was unanimously decided we had to go back to the organization to beg for funds for new cabinets. These old cabinets simply would not do. We had saved SETIO a substantial amount of money by re-boarding only the bottom half of the walls and salvaging 95% of the ceilings. In the end result, they did agree that they would provide new cabinets. The homeowners, Miss Mable, Miss Mary and Mable’s adult son, Chris, will certainly feel they are living in the lap of luxury to have practically a whole new house (we hope). Thankfully, the general construction of the house is very sound and it is practical to make all these improvements. We can only hope that Chris will take the initiative to have some pride in their newly renovated home and ensure that it is maintained.

We had been so looking forward to seeing our new friends from Quebec, Andreˊ and Suzette, with whom we worked last year in Marble Falls, Texas. They are working at an MDS site at New Iberia, about 5 hours away from us. Several of our couples were also interested in getting together with other friends who are stationed there. As a result, it was arranged that their group and ours would meet half way, at Lake Charles, Louisiana, for a meal and visiting. As of the first of February, there is also an MDS R.V. group at Johnson Bayou, and when they learned of this, they said, “We want to come too”. So, all said and done, we were 33 people, and called it the “Second Annual MDS RV Reunion”. The first Annual MDS RV Reunion was held at Newton, Texas, in February last year and it came about in precisely the same way – totally unplanned. We would have preferred to spend a lot more time visiting with our French friends, but greatly enjoyed our brief visit with everyone. We were very surprised to see Bruce and Martha Isaak from Medstead, Sk. were in New Iberia for February. We have to come all the way to Texas to visit with them!

Ironically, that same weekend, our good friends, Don Buller, the designer and head of the Senior R.V. Program and his wife, Marilyn, along with our friends, Walt and Pat Willems, all from California, were in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, attending the Annual All-Unit MDS Meeting. By e-mail to them, I was lamenting first of all that we could not be there to welcome them to Saskatchewan (neither couple had ever been there before) and that they didn’t get to experience some REAL Saskatchewan weather! After all, -18 degrees is hardly what we call frigid…

The group at Johnson Bayou is headed by a first-time R.V. Project Director who was a worker with us on two previous occasions. They have three couples working with them, none of whom have been MDS volunteers before. We are told they are very hard workers and their job is to do the finishing on a new house which has been built by the regular MDS crew stationed at Cameron, LA.

Our group attended Church at Johnson Bayou last week, while their group enjoyed the Cowboy Church at Orange! It’s a good thing we were not all there together, as the church service is held in the Pastor’s double wide trailer livingroom since Hurricane Ike took out their lovely big church, and there would not have been enough seating room! We learned that morning that 92 year old Mr. Archie, the old original Louisiana cowboy, whose home we had renovated on our second tour of duty, had passed away two months ago. We regret we were not able to attend his funeral, but know he is “up there” riding into the sunset on a fine Louisiana Appaloosa.

Missing picture

2010-02-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

I finally found the picture of our "headless volunteer", Jim Martens,. We originally thought this photo had been digitally created; however, he was just looking down so as not to mis-step on the ladder!

February 8, 2010 from Cheek, Texas

2010-02-08T17:54:00.000-08:00

Photo: Casper the Friendly Ghost aka Agnes Martens

It’s February already!

It’s the beginning of our last month of service at Cheek, Texas. Much of the week we had heavy rain. We were very happy to see the sun by Thursday.

Painting and finishing is in progress. It is so difficult to believe the shape this house was in when we first started. It looks so much different! Mr. John has been back at home for much of the time, but with Miss Jane still away, he has no one to keep him company at night, to keep him fed, and to sweep his floor. We are trying to get him meals on wheels, but so far have been unsuccessful. WE are his meals on wheels for the time being. It’s not really part of the MDS program, but it is a need that we are meeting temporarily.

Our crew has had the go-ahead to do whatever renovation is required at the King house, keeping in mind that money is tight and they are relying on us not to overspend on anything. The house has been mostly emptied of contents which have been put into a “pod” storage container in the yard. The residents of the home have made arrangements to stay with relatives as their home is being fixed up. Two of our volunteers spent two days opening up the bottom half of the walls in preparation for re-wiring.

Agnes, in a white Tyvec full-piece suit, was out in the yard painting on a cool day. John came in and said, “You have to take a picture of Casper”. I didn’t know what he was talking about until I went out with my camera, and there I saw little Agnes, looking like Casper the Friendly Ghost, painting the baseboards. The suit was so big on her that she appeared just to float around…

In viewing our photos, we also came across one of our volunteers who appeared to have no head in the photo. Our first reaction was that someone had doctored the photo; however, he was just looking down to be sure he hit the step on the ladder…

SETIO (South East Texas Interfaith Organization) advised that there was a short-term group of MDS volunteers from Pennsylvania in the area for the strict purpose of doing roofs. As we drove by one of the houses in Cheek, we noticed a bunch of young people tearing shingles off, so we stopped by. They were indeed the group from Pennsylvania, which included about 15 young men, two young ladies (who were not up on the roof, but picking up the shingles as they were being thrown down), and one little 3 year old girl playing in the tool trailer. They had arrived at the house by 9:00 a.m. When we talked to the homeowner, he advised he couldn’t believe all those people were UP ON HIS ROOF. By the time we had stopped by at 10:30 a.m., about half of the shingles had already been removed. We are advised that the new shingles were not delivered until 2:00 p.m., by which time the shingles were removed, all of the debris had been cleaned up, and that by 4:00 p.m., the roof was totally shingled and they were gone. We know that the homeowner certainly felt blessed by that group. It doesn’t get any better than that!! Apparently the Pennsylvania group did 7 roofs in the week they were here.

It worked! P.A. Shopper Article Feb. 1

2010-02-04T14:57:00.000-08:00

Pictures not necessarily in the right order:

Paul the trencher
King house with garbage from one room on lawn

Cockroaches, lizards and mice

We are advised that Miss Jane will not be allowed to return home from the Nursing Home until such time as she is taking her medication as prescribed. Obviously she has not been doing this yet, as we have not seen anything of her all week. The other day, we went over to her house and picked the oranges that had fallen off her orange tree in her yard – they were not any good.

Mr. John is getting totally spoiled – now he holds his hand out for Fig Newtons when we arrive!

The work on his house is progressing slowly. Until the wiring is completed, we are unable to finish drywalling and painting the back bedroom. The electrical panel is installed on the inside back wall of that bedroom.

We have had great weather for working this week. Our friend, 74 year old Paul, dug a trench for the sewer line – 2 ½ feet deep and 80 feet long. It took 3 days. I was wondering if he was thinking as he was digging, “I am way too old for this!!” He said he took is slow and easy.

Our Project Manager had a couple of our ladies start scraping the ceiling on the next project, the King house. I believe I have referred to the term “culture shock” in one or two previous articles. Well, this house is many times worse than the house we are working on, and we thought this one was bad! An older lady, Mable, and her mentally challenged sister live there, along with Mable’s son, Chris. Chris is a friend of Joe’s (Mr. John’s grandson). The house is three blocks down Lowhorn Road and one block right on Bluebird Lane. On Thursday, John went over there to install two exterior doors – the front door was completely destroyed and the other one was badly burnt.

It appears this house should have been evaluated more closely by the SETIO authorities. Our work sheet indicated minor repairs. However, on closer scrutiny, it requires major renovation. It needs to be totally rewired (only two or three lights and plug-ins work now and the wiring is aluminum – not acceptable). All the gyproc should be removed and the house gutted in order to eliminate the extensive black mold. We now have to wait for SETIO to confirm that they have the funds for this major project.

The auntie is an avid hoarder, as seen on the T.V. show. When my husband first arrived to let them know we were coming to work there, she shrieked that NOBODY was supposed to go into her bedroom, they were not even to touch the door knob. The second day our ladies arrived to scrape the ceilings, the auntie was not there. When it appeared that the auntie could not tolerate our presence in the house to fix it, she was carted off to the hospital for a while to see if she could be calmed down. She has an “administrator” in charge of her affairs, and the decision was made by this person and other family members that they simply had to enter auntie’s room and clean it up while she was away.

What they found, in amongst her bedroom furniture, was clothing, boxes and bags of mice-infested toilet paper, laundry detergent and other “stuff” piled so high that she has had to sleep on one of the three livingroom couches, because there is no room for her in her bedroom. John was there as they were hauling out clothes on a blanket, and he saw mice hopping off, mouse droppings throughout, and bugs galore. By the end of Thursday, the family members had 5 pickup loads of garbage in the front yard out of that bedroom! This was done with a great feeling of guilt on the part of the relatives, knowing there will be repercussions when auntie returns, but with the knowledge that it was totally necessary in order to clean up and have a healthy environment rather than the hell-hole they have been living in.

In addition, Mable and Chris agreed that two of the three livingroom couches had to “go”. When they moved the couches, the insides just lay there, all eaten out by mice and full of bugs.

The first day our ladies were scraping the ceilings, they did it with very heavy hearts. The whole atmosphere was very depressing and intolerable. When they saw the action that was taking place the next day on behalf of the residents, there was a little ray of sunshine and hope that these people were in the right track to a better home.

The rest of us were attempting to see some progress on the other project. The carpet in the livingroom in Mr. John’s house was taken up on Thursday and we got a start on lifting some tiles in the hallway to be re-used where necessary.

We also now have a resident pony in the yard, the same one the child was riding in the picture in my last article. The neighbour brought it over to eat the grass. It gets its share of attention from our crew too.

Last week of January 2010

2010-02-04T14:41:00.000-08:00

I have not been very attentive to our blog lately. I am going to just copy the last article I sent to the P.A. Shopper, so I have something recent here...

I called it "Cockroaches, lizards and mice". It's not exactly "heartwarming" as the editor was looking for, but it's what is happening here.

First of all, cockroaches are a fact of life down here. Thank heaven we do not have them in Canada. Some people can keep them from infestatation by cleaning and ensuring that when they see one, they take appropriate measures to make sure they get rid of them; others simply let them get out of control. We do not see cockroaches inside mr. John's house very often, but I saw ONE in the cupboard under his sink today. We have seen them in the walls outside.

Little geckos are also plentiful. When we first came to Mr. John's, they were frequently seen inside the house. Some green ones and some striped. Apparently they eat other insects so they are not unwelcome. We really haven't seen any inside since re-doing the walls.

Mice are the same as in Canada. They come in and if you make sure you trap them right away, you can stop them from multiplying. If not, you get more mice.

The following is my article: It will not upload onto this post so I will try to put it onto another one.

Third week of January, 2010

2010-01-24T19:04:00.000-08:00

Photo 1; Sleeping Beauty - Miss Jane having a good rest on Mr. John's sofar
Photo 2: Dark pink + dark blue = purple

The renovation at Mr. John’s home is progressing one room at a time. This home will be remembered for the PURPLE master bedroom. The homeowner’s grandson who said that will be his bedroom, had requested a maroon or purplish color on all the walls of that bedroom. SETIO, the organization providing the materials, had advised that they had gallons and gallons of paint at their storage facility and we were free to help ourselves to whatever we needed. As SETIO is quickly running out of funds, we made the decision to attempt to create the color from their assortment of paint rather than buy new paint from Home Depot. After consulting the internet as to how we could make maroon out of the dark pink paint we had to start out with, we began our mixing. With several cups of dark blue paint, we soon had a color which we believed would be passable. The two of us who were painting thought it looked maroon in the pail. However, after it was painted onto the walls, it came out more dark plum than maroon. Our women all LOVE it; none of the (white) men care for it at all. Joe, the grandson, said he was happy with it. The master bedroom has quite a large closet which we painted a dark beige color that really complements the rest of the room - not that anyone will notice when the bifold closet doors are installed…

We were delighted to see Miss Jane back home this week. She was as happy to see us all as we were to have her back! However, when we stopped by Mr. John’s on Friday to see how he was doing and she was not there, he informed us that her family had taken her to a nursing home. This was very disturbing news, as she had appeared to be better than ever upon her return from hospital and we cannot fathom her consenting to being removed from her home. We are still hoping it is not so.

On the instructions of Joe, we painted the second bedroom off-white rather than the light blue requested by Mr. John. In my heart of hearts, I was painting it light blue, as we have become very fond of the old geezer. We are already getting the hint that Mr. John may not be sleeping in this bedroom for long, and that his family may be considering a nursing home for him as well. We know that this would not be his choice, but these are circumstances over which we have no control. We pray that he can continue to enjoy the attention he gets from our being there at least until we leave.

As we were working at the one site, some of our volunteers finished up the soffit and fascia and installed new posts on Miss Louanna’s front porch. On Martin Luther King Day, the children had a holiday from school. As Cheek is a predominantly rural community, many of the families have horses, and they had a visit from one of the grandchildren of the homeowner on his pony.

This week, John’s arthritis in his hands was acting up worse than it ever has before. The knuckles were swollen and he was having trouble flexing his fingers after a night’s sleep. It was time to bring out the unflavored gelatin again. Years ago when he was complaining about arthritis in his hands, an old friend of ours had told us that she had used a tablespoon of unflavored gelatin in her morning coffee to alleviate very bad arthritis. He tried it at that time and found that it worked well. He was skeptical about how helpful it would be this time. He was very surprised to find that after one cup of coffee with the gelatin dissolved, there was a noticeable difference. The swelling went down and although some of the pain remained, it was not nearly as bad. With the plumbing, drywalling and lifting he is required to do on this job, it is very difficult with hands that hurt. We will be “doctoring” his coffee every morning for the foreseeable future! The gelatin has to be softened in a bit of cold water before putting it in the hot coffee.

This weekend, Friday and Saturday, Ford Park was the site of a Hot Hearts Youth Conference. We have never seen so many cars and buses in their HUGE parking lot as there were this weekend for that event. We learned that there were 7,100 youth and chaperones attending this conference and it was a life-changing experience for all. We in our RV’s were quite surprised to realize that we no longer were disturbed by the heavy rock music emanating from the building. It is obviously true that a person can “tune out” noises, such as loud repetitive noise or a train going by.

On Sunday night, there was a rock concert to raise funds for the disaster victims in Haiti. The organizers must have been a bit disappointed at the turnout, as there were not very many cars in the parking lot.

Copy of article sent to Shopper for first week of the new year

2010-01-24T18:59:00.000-08:00

January 11th was the first day of our new term at Cheek, Texas. Our crew consists of two couples who had been here in November and December, two new couples with whom we had worked on other projects, and ourselves. We were all anxious to get to work.

MDS volunteers are often called upon to attend to tasks which they would never expect. One of these greeted our volunteers on the first day of work. Shortly after Christmas, a very large pit bull dog was either run over on the road or shot, and it ended up deader than a door nail in Mr. John’s yard right by his carport. When my husband and I dropped by the first week in January, it was still laying there. Mr. John said his grandson had said he would remove it but had not done so. We made a trip to the nearby County Precinct to request them to remove it, and they said they would. However, upon arrival at the job site on Monday morning, the dog was still laying there. Bernie and Paul took matters into their own hands and buried the dog at the back of the property!

It was also distressing to learn that Miss Jane was in hospital. She required some medication adjustment and remained in hospital for the whole week. That left Mr. John without his chief cook and bottle washer. It was his adult grandson, Joe’s responsibility to ensure his Granddad got his meals; however, it was soon evident he was not eating on a regular basis. We ended up bringing him food just in case he hadn’t eaten, and often that was the case. His favorite is Fig Newtons…

There are three bedrooms which required removal of wallboard, installation of sheet rock, finishing and painting. One bedroom was to the painting stage when we left for Christmas. The new agenda was to remove all of the furniture from the second and third bedrooms (they were wall to wall and floor to ceiling packed full of beds, sofas, chairs, miscellaneous furniture, clothing and boxes) so that we could do all of the bedrooms at one time. The new volunteers emptied the rooms, putting everything under a tarp in the carport. They then removed the wallboard and cleaned up the debris. At that point it was ready for John to repair the termite eaten boards at the floor and begin putting up the sheet rock. Two volunteers familiar with electrical resumed rewiring the entire house. Two of the couples went to Miss Louanna’s home to do soffit and fascia.

We were happy with our progress by the end of the first week. John and I put up the sheet rock and I taped it while he started building a laundry closet to house the washer and dryer in the kitchen. The SETIO group had given us a box of one-time-use coveralls and since “mudding” is such a messy job, I decided to try one out. It didn’t look very fashionable, but saved my clothing from getting all full of mud. It’s a messy job!

Thursday is our weekly pot luck supper. There was plenty of various food again this week. Afterwards, we brought our new 26 inch flat screen T.V. over to the office trailer which will accommodate 10 people for seating, and watched a Ken Davis C.D. He is a Christian comedian and we laughed until our sides ached.

We had good weather until Friday, when the rain began. Obviously the mice didn’t like the rain either, as two of them moved into our R.V. Our traps are still set up, but so far there have only been two caught.

On Sunday, we attended Cowboy Church at Orange again, seeing as we have new people. They had three more baptisms and welcomed 13 new members. What an awesome church!

As we had previously had excellent meals at the Vidor Restaurant, we recommended that our group might want to eat there after church. Maggie was happy to see us again and the food was great. Before leaving, she presented us with a $10 complimentary gift certificate from the restaurant owner for bringing in more business. Wow! Of course we will be going back there again!!!

2010 started out with bad news

2010-01-19T19:49:00.000-08:00

First day of the new year, we received the dreadful news that our dear old friend in Edmonton, Joan Dixon, discovered the first week in December that she had terminal ovarian cancer. What a shock for her and their family and friends! EVERY year we had received a Christmas poem from Joan and of course because we were in Texas, we did not realize there was no poem this year. She asked her daughter to wait until after the new year to advise their friends, as she did not want to spoil everyone's Christmas! She had been totally symptom-free until the end of November. The cancer had already spread to other parts of her body and she was in hospital from the first week of December on. It grew like wildfire. We had word from her family that she passed away last Friday morning, January 15th. We grieve with Charlie and Heather and Alex in the loss of a very fine lady who spent her life thinking about the comfort of other people, right up to the end.

Then on January 2nd, we learned that our former neighbours at Kootenay Lake also had bad news. After spending a wonderful Christmas with all of their family at home for the first time in years, Bryan and Jill Daybell advised that on their way back to Calgary, their daughter, Rita (who graduated with our Christy) and her two young adult daughters, were in a terrible accident in Kootenay Park. Thank the Lord that no one was killed, but they were in very bad shape. They have updated us to advise that the one daughter was released from hospital the same week, the second daughter has many broken bones and has finally been released but it will take a long while before she is back to normal, and their own daughter, Rita, had a head injury which she is still recovering from - but she is on the mend.

My Auntie Helen Werschler, who is also my Godmother, passed away at 92 on January 7th, but that was a blessing, as she had Alzheimers quite bad. She had broken her hip recently and had surgery in Regina. She apparently was in a lot of pain after the surgery and of course did not realize what was happening, so none of our family was sad to see her out of her misery. She was a wonderful auntie.

So, I just thought I would share this with anyone who happens to read our blog.

If you ARE following the blog, I would sure appreciate knowing. Just give me confirmation at redwingbraun@hotmail.com.

I am still writing articles to send to the P.A. Shopper every week, but as of the new year, the new Office Secretary is doing the website updates for MDS, so that lightens my load of writing.

John and I are doing fine. Haven't had any illness yet. Sometimes John gets down because of the "culture shock", but thankfully he gets over it and back to work. Today, Jan. 20th, he encountered a flock (or whatever they call a bunch of them) of cockroaches in a back wall which he is shoring up. He got out his spray bottle of diluted Pine Sol which does kill ants. It didn't seem to kill the cockroaches but it sure slowed them down so he could stomp them. And big ones they were!!

He is not crazy about this type of renovation work. He much prefers building a house from scratch. However, we are here, and we can see many blessings to the homeowner that we ARE HERE. Mr. John holds his hand out for a cookie every morning when I arrived, so I'd better be having one for him!!! And it is great to have Miss Jane back after she was in hospital for about 10 days. I really missed her!

Will write more in a few days. Good night.

Shari says goodbye to Texas

2010-01-16T19:43:00.000-08:00

23-DAY BREAK OVER

December 26, 2009 marked the first anniversary of John being a non-smoker. What a wonderful blessing. After trying numerous times to quit smoking, he has finally succeeded! If he could do it, anyone can. He has commented that contrary to what he had been told, food does not taste any different and he is not coughing up “black stuff” from his lungs. He does confirm that occasionally the urge to smoke is still as strong as ever, but it passes quickly.

We enjoyed the Christmas holidays with our daughter, but it was our mission to show her this area of Texas and pack in as much sightseeing as possible in 15 days. After returning to Beaumont, we went through a number of tanks of gas and ate out at every interesting place we could think of. She must have had 500 pictures on her new digital camera which she won at the P.A. Inn Christmas party! We toured downtown Beaumont, where the giant “Dalmation” fire hydrant is the focal point. One lovely sunny day, we also enjoyed Shangri La Botanical Gardens at Orange, which included a one hour swamp tour. (see previous pictures)

Shari flew back to Saskatoon from Houston on January 5th. She encountered much frustration on her trip home. First, her 7:40 a.m. flight from Houston was cancelled and re-scheduled for 3:15 p.m. We were fortunate in that although we had gotten up and dressed in our motel room at 4;30 a.m. to leave for the airport, we had brought along the laptop and checked for e-mails before leaving. We were able to just get back into bed and resume our sleep, enjoy the continental breakfast at the motel, and then tour around the area on our way to the airport. We left her as she entered the security gate at 1:00 p.m., and we returned to Beaumont, as there was no reason for us to stay. We later learned that due to staffing problems, her plane did not leave Houston until 4:30 p.m.! She had a short layover in Calgary and had difficulties getting her bearings as to finding the right gate for her flight to Saskatoon. In the end result, she arrived in Saskatoon just before midnight. We are just thankful she is home safely.

Texas is experiencing an Arctic front which has plunged temperatures to below freezing. We have had to leave our water running in our RV’s to prevent it from freezing. The local plumbers are extremely busy!

As long as the cold spell lasts, the Salvation Army in Beaumont is doing an admirable job of providing a 24 hour warming shelter complete with meals, beds, coats and blankets for anyone who is homeless or who has no power. We are aware that there are many homeless people in the south who are able to live on the street because of the weather. However, it is quite astounding how many people do not have power in their homes, either due to poverty or a result of the “storms”, a reference to hurricanes or tornados.

We just got word that my dear Aunt/Godmother, Helen Werschler, passed away in Langenburg on January 8th. She was 91 years old, suffering from Alzheimers, and had broken her hip and was having a lot of pain after her surgery. So it was a blessing to hear she was no longer having to suffer. Much as we would like to be at home with my family as they say their goodbyes, it is not possible since we have made this commitment to MDS.

The internet age certainly helps to keep us in touch with what’s happening back home as well. I often check the local paper and it was there I learned that a dear friend, Gertrude Rock, had also passed on in Prince Albert. When I worked downtown, I used to run into her on my lunch hours at the Sally Ann or simply out for a walk. She was a lovely gracious lady.

All six couples volunteering for January and February are now on the RV site. We have enjoyed a couple of days of visiting with our friends, Paul and Mary from Pennsylvania, before resuming work. There are two couples who returned who worked here November and December, as well as two new couples, our Project Director, Warren Siemens, and his wife Carol, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and office manager, Maryanne Sawatsky and her husband, Pete, from Winkler, Manitoba. All of them have worked with us previously and we are happy to be on the team with them. Our camp has been revamped in order to accommodate the extra RV’s. We are packed in, nice and cozy, a little closer than we were before.

After a 23 day “holiday”, all of us are ready to get back on the job. The homeowner will be happy to see us on his doorstep bright and early on Monday morning as well.

More pictures

2010-01-16T19:31:00.000-08:00

1. Shari overlooking the Gulf of Mexico (my favorite photo of the year)

2. John at Museum of the Gulf Coast

3. Shangri La is a wonderful place on a sunny day: Swamp Tour

New Years Eve, 2009

2010-01-16T19:08:00.000-08:00

I notice that when I try to label my photos on the blog, the labels do not come out right. So I am going to itemize the photos here - from the bottom up because they still didn't come out right:

1. Linda with Miss Jessie (L) and Miss LaRue(R) from the Ben Rogers Welcome Centre
2. Penguin enclosure at Moody Gardens Aquarium
3. Shari enjoying a drink at the Rain Forest Cafe
4. Giant Dalmation fire hydrant in downtown Beaumont

I appear to have gotten lazy over our Christmas break, so I am using my newspaper article to share what we encountered:

What a lovely, memorable New Year’s Eve! First, we enjoyed a New Years’ Feast at the Golden Corral, which is the “buffet of all buffets”. Shari’s eyes bugged out when she saw all the food choices – the salad bar alone was phenomenal! Then there are different bars with your choice of Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Texas steak, pork, roast turkey, barbecued ribs, pot roast, catfish, shrimp, a dozen types of vegetables, pizza, various soups, buns, basically anything your little old heart desires by way of food! After you have your fill of any or all of the above, there is an area of desserts which is larger than most entire buffets. Not only ice cream, both hard and soft, but also pies, cakes, macaroons, cookies, fudge, several types of puddings, and cheese cakes - truly a dessert-lover’s paradise. All for the grand price of $10.95 per adult, seniors $9.95!

St. John’s Lutheran Church nearby had a sign out indicating there was a New Years Eve service at 7:00 p.m. and we attended that service. It was a lovely service and everyone was very friendly, in true Texas style. Afterwards, my husband was visiting with a gentleman at the door who was saying he had overhead we were staying at Ford Park. If we had no plans for the evening, he invited us to their New Years Eve party. We had nothing whatsoever planned, and as he just lived about 6 blocks from Ford Park, we graciously accepted the invitation.

Fred lives in a lovely home along the road we had traveled often. When we arrived, we were introduced to his wife, Rebecca, and five other couples, including the pastor and his wife from the church we had been to. There were also some immediate family including a few young’uns. The island in the kitchen was covered with food. We visited a bit and then our hosts advised it was time to play some games. One card table was set up for two couples to pay Pinochle, the large table was for dominoes [Shari and I and our hostess and others played there], and John was at the kitchen table with our host and another interesting gentleman playing “Oh Hell”. There was lots of teasing and laughing and visiting. The television was on and at the stroke of midnight, we toasted each other: “HAPPY NEW YEAR” with a glass of wine!! Another confirmation that strangers are just friends we haven’t met yet…

We spent a wonderful day at Shangri La Botanical Gardens. Although not in season, we could see the potential for a very beautiful colorful garden. We also purchased a ticket for a boat ride, which turned out to be a very informative one hour swamp tour. This attraction, even out of season, was well worth the total price of $8.00 for seniors. We will be certain to go back before we leave Texas in March, hoping to catch some spring buds and flowers.

On the way home from the gardens, we stopped at Vidor Flea Market for supper. It is a very small privately owned restaurant with excellent food and service. Our waitress, Maggie, had the time to stop and chat with us, and was interested in our work with MDS. As we were leaving, she informed us that our meals were taken care of! The hospitality and generosity of the people of Texas never fails to astound us.

On Shari’s last day, we took her to Galveston to see how much more of Hurricane Ike devastation had been rebuilt since we were there last. They are making great strides with reconstruction. We did learn some interesting details while we were there. Maggie had informed us, and it was confirmed by a local resident, that although the nation still believes there were very few casualties, over 3,000 people had been killed in the storm in Galveston. The resident advised that due to the touristy nature of Galveston, this large loss of life had been “kept under wraps”. He also advised that just this week, they had discovered the remains of one more casualty to add to the list.

Moody Gardens Aquarium in Galveston was very similar to the one we had been to in Tennessee, and for $13.00 for seniors, we spent all afternoon enjoying the absolutely fabulous marine life displayed. This venue put San Antonio Sea World totally to shame!

At the penguin enclosure, it appeared our little black and white Jughead puppy that disappeared in April last year, may be reincarnated as a penguin… We laughed as one particular penguin swam as fast as it could in the water, round and around, up and down, in and out of the water, for about 5 minutes, just having a gay old time, as our little puppy used to “fly” around our back yard!

Life will get back to “normal” as Shari goes back home and we get back to work. We will be happy to be back to work instead of eating out and touring just about every day.

Blog 8 from Beaumont Dec. 28, 2009

2009-12-28T18:17:00.000-08:00

This year is fast winding down. We picked Shari up at Houston airport on Dec. 22nd and spent Christmas with her at New Braunfels time share. It was a beautiful condo, exactly the same place we went for Valentines weekend, courtesy of sister-in-law Peggy and her husband Steve.

Although the weather did not co-operate as we had hoped, it was (almost) warm enough on Christmas Day to spend some time in the heated pool and hot tub.

I am certain the pots and pans in our unit had not seen as much use as they did in the four days we occupied it. We went out for several meals, but do enjoy a home-cooked meal even when on vacation. On Christmas Day, we feasted on a roast chicken with the stuffing made the way we like it, gravy, and mashed potatoes that we knew were not instant.

One of the nearby attractions in San Antonio is Sea World. John and I had been to Sea World in Tennessee a few years ago. The entrance fee was around $10 and we were amazed at what we saw. We were very excited that Shari would be able to visit Sea World as well. However, one really should check on prices on line so there are no surprises when you arrive at a tourist attraction. We choked when arriving to see the sign at the gate which said “Parking $15”. When we asked how much the actual tickets were and the gate attendant said, “$57 each”, they just about had to pick me up off the pavement! Suffice it to say, John and Shari spent the afternoon at Sea World while I took the truck and went for lunch, looked for some free WYFY and did some shopping, all the while trying to keep my bearings so as not to get lost in the “big city”, which is easily done. When I picked them up, John was quick to advise this tourist facility was a huge rip-off in every way. Children’s tickets were $46 each for a child over 10. Anyone taking a family should be prepared for a $150 per person day which is outrageous and definitely not worth it.

Now, the Snake Farm on I35 was another thing. For $9.95 per adult, you can spend all day looking at all kinds of caged reptiles, exotic animals and a petting zoo.

We also went on an African Safari adventure for $16 each which was extremely enjoyable and worth the entrance fee. You stay in your car and listen to a very informative CD as you drive through the 400 acre park and throw food out for the various exotic animals. It was awesome. The most social animals were the ostriches “with attitude” and the burros who just plain wanted close-up attention.

Shari and I spent an evening walking through the Schlitterbaun Christmas Display. In summer it is a huge water park, and in winter, they turn it into a Winter Wonderland of Christmas lights. The charge is $16.00, but well worth it. There are many activities for children and the lights alone are spectacular.

Eating out in the U.S.A. can be quite interesting. At Sea World, for lunch John and Shari had a turkey wrap for which they paid $8.00 each. John said the wrap itself would have made an excellent shoe sole. He was not impressed!

At the Safari, they had an excellent restaurant with excellent prices. However, John ordered his favorite: a “bacon and turkey club sandwich”. When it arrived, he asked, “What’s this??” What he got was a layer of bacon and turkey with lettuce, cheese and tomato in a soupy ranch dressing, between two pieces of grilled panini bread the thickness of a pizza crust. Oh for a Canadian club house sandwich!

Since we have been parked at Ford Centre, we have been complaining about the noise of the nearby interstate highway. On our trip to New Braunfels, we encountered an RV park that has this one beat for traffic noise. This one has RV’s parked UNDER and BETWEEN the interstate highways. It is unfathomable who would ever want to park underneath such a busy highway!!

We have found an absolutely wonderful FM radio station in the area. It is Country Legends 101.2 and plays all of the old favorites, both country and western and hits of the 50’s and 60’s. No sense turning to any other radio station!

I decided to use the above text from my article for the newspaper instead of having to re-do it. It gives the whole story…

We had a good trip back from New Braunfels to Beaumont. Have a list of things to keep Shari occupied and have crossed a bunch of them off already! Today we took her to meet Mr. John and Miss Jane, as well as Miss Tiffany from SETIO. Went to Gator Country, a tourist attraction just up the road, but it is only open on Saturday and Sunday in winter. So she and I went and played a round of Mini Golf at Colorado Canyon Fun Centre, then to the Lunch Buffet at Ryans and to the Parkland Mall for a couple of hours. Hope we can find something neat to do for New Years Eve.

Night’all.

Blog 7 - Christmas is around the corner

2009-12-14T19:43:00.000-08:00

Things have been moving right along here on our new project. We have started on Mr. John Batiste’s house. We had driven past the house several times before realizing that we would be renovating it. I have to plead guilty to feeling pity for the two “pathetic souls” who appeared to inhabit the place. The wizened old man often sat in his chair in the carport just watching the world go by. A very unkempt thin woman in a ball cap would trudge from the burning pile just back of the house, or be sweeping, looking up as traffic went by. Both appeared very wary of strangers.

Mr. John is a 76 year old gentleman whose wife passed away one year ago in November. His home was damaged in Hurricane Rita (2005) and suffers from drastic disrepair. He had worked until he was electrocuted in midlife and only has a nub of a thumb left on one of his hands. Later, he had a stroke and he has lost the use of his other arm and hand. He manages to hold a cigarillo with his left nub. The only way he can light it himself is to leave his burner on the stove on all day, and light it from there.

John's sister, Miss Jane, is 73, and lives four houses down the road from John’s house, by herself. She often sleeps at John’s house, as her house was also damaged by Hurricane Rita and she has been without power since then. If she does sleep at her house, she walks over to John’s house every morning and spends most of the day there, sweeping and making sure he gets fed. She promised his late wife that she would look after him.

From the outside, Miss Jane’s house looks undamaged and is quite a pretty home. She keeps her yard immaculate. However, upon walking inside, it is evident extensive repairs are required for it to be liveable. Unlike Mr. John’s house with a concrete floor, hers has a wood floor and the wood is rotten. The SETIO people have advised that it has been condemned and the Power company will not hook the power back up. They have offered to build her a new house but she has refused.

None of our volunteers could understand this refusal until Miss Tiffany explained it to us. She was raised in Cheek, which is also known as “Cheeks” to the locals. The ancestors of the people of Cheek had been slaves. When slavery was abolished, they were either given land or worked for it and this land and these homes are all they had to hand down from generation to generation. If their home is renovated by volunteers, they own it and can hand it down with no strings. If they are built a new home, the government has a lien on it and when the owner dies, it goes back to the government.

Miss Jane is still hopeful that someone will come along and fix her house for her, and of course, the renovation happening at her brother’s home gives her a great deal of hope in that regard.

We are finding it a great blessing to be working in the house with Mr. John and Miss Jane there, giving us an opportunity to get to know them. These folks are wonderful people and just plain lonesome for company. Once they knew we were there to complete the job and not rip them off, they welcomed us with open arms and are totally enjoying having us around. John’s grandson helped us tremendously since we started, and he will benefit from our work in the long run. Miss Jane is an absolute delight and we love having her around. She was totally surprised and delighted when our volunteers helped her celebrate her birthday last week with flowers and other gifts.

So far, we have renovated the master bedroom. Our goal is to get it painted so that we can move Mr. John’s bed back in and he can sleep there for the three weeks we are shut down. I think we’ll be able to meet our goal.

It was a dirty job taking the walls out as well as an old tiled shower enclosure in the en suite which hadn’t been used in years. There was a lot of termite damage, and a couple of cockroaches and other insect inhabitants who had to vacate. Some of the 2 x 4’s were eaten totally away and had to be replaced before the gyproc could be put up. The new acrylic shower enclosure will not be installed before the new year, but it is out in the carport waiting its turn.

The whole house is required to be re-wired as well. That will le a big job in itself.

I drove to Newton last Saturday to spend the day with my friend, Patty. She was sure happy to see me. Spent several hours with her and then headed back to Beaumont. John was already starting to worry by the time I got home in the dark. It is a 2 hour drive, but I made some other stops along the way. I enjoyed driving and listening to my Country Legends radio station.

We attended Cowboy Church in Bridge City again last Sunday. It sure is an awesome church. There was one immersion baptism of an 11 year old boy last time we went, and three adult baptisms this week. They are doing a fabulous ministry there. The new church is bulging at the seams already!

We have discovered the “Cheddars” Restaurant and I have to say it is my favorite. The prices are reasonable and the food is delicious. There is WAY too much food, but you can always take a doggie bag. I wouldn’t mind taking a picture of their “onion rings appetizer” which is the hugest pile of onion rings I have ever seen; as well as the deep fried chicken tenders – a plate of monumental proportions which is quickly gaining more candidates for the World’s Biggest Loser!!! And their Potato Soup is out of this world.

It has been quite cool and rainy here. At least it isn’t 40 below!!!

Sunday evening we attended a choir concert at North End Baptist Church in Beaumont and on the list of people in the choir, it was very interesting to see the name “Linda Mack”. What a surprise. That of course was my maiden name. John was talking to an older gentleman when I found this name, and he went and located “Linda Mack” for me. She was just as excited as I to share the name. We had our picture taken together and exchanged addresses.

Our youngest granddaughter, Emily, turned 5 last week. How time flies!

Needless to say, we are especially missing Christmas preparations with our children and grandchildren, the concerts and other Christmas excitement at home. Only one more week until we pick Shari up at Houston Airport. I wish she could smuggle Abby and Gizmo into her bags… We are very much looking forward to her joining us for Christmas holidays. We will be spending Christmas in New Braunfels at Peggy and Steve’s time share and then bringing her back to Beaumont and Cheek to see what we are doing here. She is quite excited to be coming to Texas!

Well, I could go on here for another hour, but it’s time to got to bed. I have a large closet to tape in the morning. Warren and Carole Siemens are arriving tomorrow for a couple of days to get oriented for his stint as Project Manager in the new year. We look forward to seeing them again.

Good night.

Beaumont Blog 6 - December 1, 2009

2009-12-05T19:51:00.000-08:00

Well, the 2009 Grey Cup game is history. Desvastating history for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. How humiliating it was to HEAR the occurrences of the last minute of play.

We did go out and buy a new television set. It is “only” a 26 inch T.V., but it has a built-in DVD player and it fits just nicely into the entertainment centre in the R.V. We found we did not require a new antenna or anything else to be able to get the local channels.

However, we do not have the knowledge to hook it up to the computer, even though we had the cord. So we were quite satisfied to be able to obtain the Grey Cup Game on CHED T.V. out of Edmonton and our whole crew was over for a Grey Cup Party. That last minute of play, don’t you know, our lap top cut out briefly. Only afterwards did we find that the field goal had actually been missed and the Roughriders would have won; but there were too many players on the field so Montreal had the chance to do it again, and won. UNBELIEVABLE!!!! Ancient history now…

This week, we ladies have stayed at home so far because it is raining and the men can do all the indoor work there is to do. We don’t mind that a bit. We understand it is snowing in some parts of Texas, as well as on the prairies. Jim and Annette have e-mailed that they arrived home in Steinbach mid afternoon on Nov. 30th and the roads were like summer driving all the way. That is very unusual for the end of November.

John and I learned that our dear friend, Helene Epp, is finally at her final rest and we are so thankful for that. It would be nice to be able to go to her funeral this Friday, but that is not feasible. I have sent my public tribute to Helene and her husband, David, to my publisher to be put in the P.A. Shopper. I hope people will enjoy the article.

We had a “Hootenanny” at our house last Thursday evening and finally enjoyed some music. Carl plays a mean guitar and we all really enjoyed the singing.

We went to a different Baptist Church this past Sunday. We enjoyed the service, the people and the pastor so much that we will certainly go back. Their pastor used to be a running back for a professional football team – he’s just a short guy and although his sermon was longer than most, he was so interesting, the time went by quickly. It is a very vibrant congregation and the lady behind me referred to their pastor as a “real pistol”. He has only been at this church for 4 months, so that is quite a compliment.

I am attaching a picture of our whole group taken at Ryan’s Buffet Thanksgiving Day. There’s entirely too much good food happening down here!!

This week we had a little gathering at Miss Loretta’s to acknowledge completion of her renovation. What a blessing to all of us. Six representatives of SETIO were in attendance as well as all of our group. Miss Loretta provided coffee and donuts and we spent an enjoyable time showing the SETIO group the improvements and sharing our common goal in helping people get their homes back in good shape after the storms. They are as thankful as we are that the Lord is using all of us in this very important mission. Although Miss Loretta was still feeling a bit under the weather with her cold, she expressed her gratitude and delight with the upgrades in her new newly renovated home. Our little friend, Destiny, was not able to be there and we all missed her.

Beamont Blog 5 - Thanksgiving weekend

2009-11-26T11:38:00.000-08:00

New garden door

Crew at Miss Loretta's with Destiny supervising

Lois and Jack

Beaumont Blog 5

Miss Loretta’s renovations are complete after some final finishing touches. There is a certain amount of satisfaction for the volunteers to have one job completed, especially since there were many more improvements done than were initially approved.

The new garden door is absolutely beautiful and the new flooring will be so much easier for her to clean. The many upgraded items will certainly make her life more comfortable, and that is a blessing to us.

We enjoyed the company of Miss Loretta’s 4 year old granddaughter, Destiny, for two days while we worked there. Loretta’s 15 year old nephew, Will, was babysitting Destiny, as there was no school. He mainly stayed in his bedroom watching T.V. Little Destiny shyly came out of her room at first, but in a short time, she was talking the ear off Lois and I, and entertaining us as only a 4 year old can! She’s a little cutie. It was somewhat difficult to understand what she was saying sometimes, because she has that “drawl”, but we managed to communicate quite well. John always stays there for lunch to babysit the tool trailer, and he shared his lunch with Destiny the one day.

The crew at Darcy’s did the last wall of siding. Lois and I helped do the caulking on the last wall so Agnes and Annette could stay home. The men had stabilized the front porch and then they were finishing it off with aluminum fascia and putting up two big posts. The whole exterior of the house will look 100% better than it did, even though painting it is not on our agenda.

The third project started is Miss Orma’s. This is a house trailer up on pillars which FEMA provided to the elderly Miss Orma and her blind husband when their home was destroyed in Hurricane Ike. It is barely liveable, but SETIO is providing funds for some minor renovations. John fixed the plumbing under the sink and a bank of drawers that was falling apart, as well as fixing her commode. He was quite happy that there was no further interior work we were committed to do, as she has a cockroach infestation! We certainly hope SETIO will look after getting an exterminator in to help them with that situation!!

What will keep John and Bernie busy next week is finishing the 30 feet of handicap ramp which was started on Friday. There was a lot of heavy bull work getting the beams set up and ready, so they were very tired when they got home from work. We are told the girls can screw down the boards and put up the spindle railing next week…

Our highlight of last weekend was driving to Johnson Bayou where we had built homes after Hurricane Rita, to attend church there. Since Hurricane Ike destroyed their lovely church building, the Baptist Church has been holding Sunday services in the Pastor’s home. Their small congregation was also having a pre-Thanksgiving feast after the service and our entire MDS group was invited and greeted as long-lost family. We learned that Miss FloraBelle’s husband, Mr. Alvin, had passed away this summer. He had been an old Louisiana cowboy with Mr. Archie. We had gotten to know them a bit, as they were the first house beside our campground and their son, Tim Trahan, owned the campground.

The Pastor advised us that MDS regular unit in Cameron is building a new house for Miss FloraBelle, and later in the week, we learned that Gerry Sapinsky, one of our MDS RV Program friends, will be heading up an RV unit there in February to finish that house and another one for one of the ladies who was at the church service. That was very heartwarming to hear.

Jim and Annette are going home to Steinbach for December and will be returning for January and February. We will certainly miss them, as they are both hard workers.

We will probably be going out shopping for Black Friday to see what kind of specials they have out there. Our 15.4 inch HD Widescreen LCD was sufficient when we first bought it, but we think we’d like to find about a 29-32 inch. Would like to have one with a built-in DVD player, but it seems like there are none of those on the Black Friday sales we’ve seen so far.

Then if we buy an antenna, MAYBE we will be able to get some TV reception here!! John is sick of reading books already.

The traffic on our highway about doubled with the Thanksgiving holiday starting on November 26th. The Americans REALLY celebrate Thanksgiving! Food, family and football, they say here.

We are looking forward to Sunday with the Grey Cup game between the Riders and Stampeders. Will be watching it on the web site that Darren gave us to use (maybe on our brand new 32 inch T.V.???). GO RIDERS GO!!!!

Blog 4 from Beaumont

2009-11-19T12:14:00.001-08:00

Miss Loretta and I

Darcy's house - Project 2

Annette in front of "Landmark" in Beaumont

Cowboy Church

We wished we could have been there every day when Miss Loretta came home from work to see her reaction to the progress.

This week the old flooring was removed right down to the concrete, and new lino installed in the kitchen, livingroom, two hallways and one bedroom. Lois and Agnes and I scraped away for an afternoon, and Jim and Annette did a very fine job of laying the lino.

As a section of the floor by the patio door was wet where we were scraping, we called John and he found there was a leak in one of the water lines to the bathroom which had a common wall with the kitchen. Thankfully he was able to remove one sheet of wallboard in the kitchen to fix it. The bottom of the wallboard was totally separated, so they replaced a half sheet and the wall is far more sturdy now.

Some of our volunteers continued with the siding at the second project, Darcy’s home. John’s project for Thursday was to fix the plumbing there, necessitating two trips into Beaumont for parts.

Lois and I didn’t work on Wednesday, and went to town shopping. The other ladies were busy working on specific jobs alongside their husbands.

When we learned that in order to hire someone to remove the garbage pile, the cost would be over $400.00, we found a suitable alternative. Darcy advised that we could move it over to his “back 40” and he will burn it at a later time, along with his garbage. Lois and I volunteered for that job, as we had prayed for a solution. On Thursday morning, we moved three truck loads of garbage, using our truck. It was just wonderful to see the front yard all nice and cleaned up again. Another cause for joy when Miss Loretta returned home from work.

I am amazed that in Beaumont (and probably other cities in the USA) if you want to mail a letter, you have to go to one of the two Post Offices. This is for a city at least the size of Saskatoon! There are no mail boxes anywhere – at the malls or banks or anything.

As I mentioned in our last blog, the Orange Cowboy Church was where we chose to worship our third Sunday here. What a breath of fresh air! We were greeted at the church gate by two teenage girls holding flags on poles, on horses standing at attention. By the time the service started, the new church, which had been recently dedicated, was plumb full of members of all ages. We were advised that this church had been started two years ago with 9 members. They had previously congregated in an old barn near Bridge City. Their music was led by the Chuckwagon Gang and the preacher told us to feel free to use “Eee-haw” for Amen! We witnessed the first immersion baptism in their new church – a boy about 11 had made his commitment for Christ the week before. Their baptism fount was a new cattle trough. We also noted the 20 or so light fixtures in the ceiling were wash tubs. We went away having been greeted with the love of Christ and a hearty invitation to “Y’all come on back now”.

This week John and I received an invitation to return to Cheek to work after New Years, which was what we were hoping for. There was also a hint that our dear friends, Paul and Mary Stolzfus from Pennsylvania will be at this site, but until that is officially confirmed, we dare not believe it to be true. What a blessing that would be!!!!!

Our Shari at home is counting down the days until her flight leaves (Dec. 22nd). I am sure she is already packed! She is flying to Houston to spend a couple of weeks with us. Thanks to Peggy and Steve, we have a reservation at New Braunfels time share over Christmas and we will be taking Shari down to San Antonio to visit the River Walk which should be beautifully decorated for the season.

Well, I guess I’ll post this now. Nice chatting with y’all.

Beaumont Blog 3

2009-11-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

We thought our crew was complete at 8 and got quite a surprise to have another rig roll in on Saturday. We welcomed Carl and Lois Ramer, from Elk Valley, Alberta, into our little group. Now we are 10.

Another 4-day work week has been completed. Again, we are very satisfied with what was accomplished, and some of our crew even started a second renovation job!

Thanks to Annette and Agnes, the whole exterior of the house is painted, complete with window trim and metal decorative pillars painted brown. Bernie scraped the old paint off those old pillars for two days! Bert then spray-painted them to match the trim.

The drywall was second-coated and then John went back to working on the plumbing. He fixed the drain in the kitchen and put a framework under the sink with two shelves. Miss Loretta was totally delighted to see not only one new shelf, but two!

Tuesday, Bernie helped John texture spray the one bedroom and John sprayed the ceilings in the hallways, diningroom and kitchen.

When that was done, his next task was to get the bath tub ready for a tubsurround. The walls around the bathtub were the worst he has ever seen! The termites had eaten out the whole inside of the 2 x 4’s and there was only the outside left – nothing to nail or screw to. After cleaning up the terrific mess of termite-infested old gyproc (which took almost a whole afternoon, he used his best expertise to mickey-mouse something so that there would be backing for the new gyproc. By the time we left on Thursday, the new tubsurround was installed. What a thing of beauty compared to what she had. Of course, we take such a simple convenience for granted at home. The only thing remaining to do in the master bath is replacing the bottom of the cabinet. Under ordinary circumstances, he would be taking out the vanity and putting in a new one. Not here. The plan is to give her a new floor for the cabinet. He also fixed the plumbing in her en suite.

Doreen and I painted the walls of the hallway and then painted the bedroom. I painted the ceiling. Miss Loretta picked a dark beige/yellow colour. We did the walls and ceiling the same colour.

Then Lois cut in while I primed the ceilings in the other rooms. I don’t usually paint the ceilings but John had his work cut out for him in the bathroom and I felt I could do it. He painted the final coat on the ceilings just before we left Thursday. We painted them white rather than the yellow, in to make the rooms brighter. We also painted the bifold doors for little Destiny’s closet (it is her bedroom we renovated) and some trim boards.

Agnes painted the new exterior doors while Lois and I worked on the inside.

Jim and Carl were working at the second job removing siding and getting the house ready to put soffiting and fascia, and new siding on. It was in VERY VERY sad shape as well. Again, termite-infested wood had to be removed and something solid put in its place, which was a real challenge for them. Then Annette helped them start to put the soffiting on when the painting was done at Miss Loretta’s.

Bernie made a new attic hatch in the garage and all the fixtures were put up one final time.

One more week at Miss Loretta’s should complete the flooring in the bedroom, the hallway, kitchen and diningroom. There is also a double garden door to arrive yet.

Unfortunately, we have a very large pile of garbage laying on Miss Loretta’s front lawn and it appears not to be an easy task to get it removed. Soon her lovely grass will be at risk. We are hoping SETIO will get it removed this weekend. Of course then we will have the flooring and some carpet to get rid of next week – maybe they are waiting to complete the load….

The second Sunday here, we decided to attend Miss Loretta’s church in Cheek. We were sorry she was unable to attend. We were the only white people there. They had just dedicated their newly renovated church the Sunday before. We were told the service started at 11:00, so there we all were, parked in our seats, with people wandering back and forth, but no sign of the service actually STARTING until 11:20. It was a very animated service. Their very talented young pastor has been invited to perform at the JDI Record Production Talent Search Finals in Waterloo, Iowa! Man, can he belt it out! He kinda reminded me of Will Smith in a way!! It was an interesting service. The sermon was around 45 minutes, but the service lasted 2 hours. We were out at 1:00. Very spirit filled - as John said - he wasn't disappointed. It was everything he expected it to be. The children's choir of 7 children led the singing. I would like to see the adult choir myself. And there were no hymnals, nor overhead, so I guess everyone has to KNOW the words...

This Sunday we are going to the Beaumont Cowboy Church. We drove by the driveway many times when we were in Johnson Bayou, but never did attend. I am looking forward to it. They have built a new building which looks quite interesting on the website.

We had our weekly supper together in the office trailer on Thursday evening and afterwards shared how each couple had met. It was interesting to hear the stories.

Friday, we drove to Galveston to see the damage from Hurricane Ike. It was substantial, but there is a lot of rebuilding happening. Five of our crew including John took the tour of the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig and Museum. They were very excited to also get to see some dolphins frolicking in the bay as the barges rolled by. There were also hundreds of pelicans hanging around waiting for handouts of fish entrails.

I wasn’t interested in offshore drilling rigs, so I walked around the very old tourist area nearby. I was sorry to miss the dolphins though.

Galveston has some beautiful historic buildings with shops of all kinds within walking distance of the Museum. They even had horse and buggy rides for sight-seers, but I imagine they were quite expensive. No cabs in sight.

We stopped at Galveston Beach and dabbled our toes in the water. There were a few shell collectors and some children wading in the surf while their parents watched. I had no idea of the scope of that beach, though, until I purchased a postcard of the beach in summer – it was wall-to-wall people with umbrellas, beach blankets and sunlovers - as many people as there were seagulls when we were there.

A big howdy to y’all out there who are reading our blog. The weather at home is holding by the looks of things, so you will enjoy a shorter winter as well. We have had 80 degrees most of last week and are thoroughly enjoying it.

Unfortunately I cannot find the charge for our camera and the batteries are dead. I am having to rely on the pictures of others and will be posting some pictures in the next few days. Fat Friday is coming up and I think we'll be looking to buy another digital camera...

Beaumont Blog 2

2009-11-05T20:56:00.000-08:00

This place is certainly different from the country setting at Marble Falls! We are a quarter of a mile from I-10 parked in a fenced area opposite the Ford Pavilion in the Ford Communiplex area just out of Beaumont. The traffic is a continuous roar, with a slight decrease between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m… It certainly takes some getting used to!

We are parked on concrete which is convenient. We like it that we can also hang our clothes on a line to dry behind our RV’s because of the fence. This is now the home of our four Canadian couples volunteering for November and December, 2009.

Cheek is a small rural area about 3 miles from where we are parked. We have come home for lunch each day this week, but our personal preference would be to take our lunch and eat there.

After several days of rain, the sun has come out and we have been able to do the outside work at Miss Loretta’s house. She would probably have qualified for a complete home replacement, but just wanted to keep her old house and get some things fixed.

Miss Loretta is a beautiful black lady, very young looking to be a grandmother. She has her 15 year old nephew, Willie, living with her, and also two young grandchildren who live with her part time. We have met Willie briefly as he comes into the house after school, diving immediately into the refrigerator and heading for his bedroom, resurfacing in a few minutes to get more food!

Miss Loretta’s exterior doors all showed daylight all around, and allowed insects and critters to move around freely. Not any more! Bert got busy and replaced all three of them with airtight frames and door, displacing a family of geckos from under the sill of the front door. I was there when they tried to scurry into the house and Bert was waiting for the reaction Doreen would have had – a hysterical shriek. Sorry to disappoint him. I probably would have shrieked had it been a snake. He managed to divert them outside instead of inside and then finished his job!

The ceilings in one of the bedrooms, the kitchen, diningroom and hallways were falling down in places. John and Bernie quickly cut down the old ceilings the first day. I am sure it was quite a shock for Miss Loretta to come home from work to find her ceiling gone and bare rafters exposed. Upon further investigation, these rafters also required some work in order to do their job properly.

Jim and Annette, who had arrived on Saturday, set to removing and replacing the damaged bottom row of siding. Then while Jim put on new upright end boards and fixed soffit and fascia, Annette and Agnes, with Linda’s help when she was not taping the ceilings, scraped and prepared the siding for paint. On Thursday, the last day of our work week, Doreen was excited to finally get out of the office and onto the job. The ladies painted the siding and by 3:30 p.m., only the garage wall remained to be painted.

John got a start on fixing the plumbing, and Bernie put the new light fixtures up so that Miss Loretta and her family would have lights for the weekend.

We were very satisfied with what we had accomplished in four short days!

On Friday, the three couples here went to the Golden Corral, my favorite place from last year. They have the widest choice of food we have ever seen and all of it delicious. I simply CANNOT do this very often. It is not a place for a person who cannot resist food to go more than once a year!!

Our first Sunday here, we attended a very large Baptist Church in downtown Beaumont. They had several services going at one time and we were directed to the “conventional” service. It was very high-tech – all kinds of equipment around, almost like it was being televised. They also had a 50 member robed choir. It was a very large congregation.

Afterwards, we had our weekly MDS dinner, again at a Chinese Buffet. This is going to be a tough stretch with all this eating out!

Bert and Doreen showed us the way to Walmart. I think we will take the alternate route instead of going on I-10. No sense getting all stressed out with that traffic just to go for groceries. I went by myself one evening, and only got lost once. Asked for directions and got back to our site safe and sound, although it was already dark.

Our internet is accessible any time, thank heaven. I sure wish we had access to a pay phone at the park here, but the last time I tried to use my SuperStore phone card at a Texas pay phone, it would not accept it. I was sure it worked at pay phones in Texas last year. The Ben J. Rogers Regional Visitors Centre is in the next block across a field and when we went there for information, I inquired about telephones. She said we could feel free to use their phone with our credit card any time we wished. I have taken them up on that offer on several occasions. Unfortunately, they close at 5:00, so I have to come home and shower and change in a hurry to get any phone calls made, or save them for Friday.

First blog from Beaumont, Texas 2009

2009-10-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are, in Beaumont, Texas. We could have made it in 3 days, but only went to our trailer storage at Jasper on the third day.

I checked the last blog and will first of all say that as we drove down the highway at Ponca City, the rest of the places were rather run down, so we were glad we stayed where we did.

We came right down Highway 81 and 271 straight south. It was a good trip. When we got into Oklahoma, it was already shorts and sandals weather, too warm to be having long pants in the vehicle.

It was frustrating not to be able to find internet or phone access without going out of our way. When we got to Texas, I tried to use my phone card on a pay phone, and it will not work. I am sure that I used it on the pay phone at Marble Falls, so am not sure what’s going on here.

John and I had worn our “dogs” (foam clogs) all summer while we were working at home, and we have paint all over them. So one of the first things we wanted to do was find us each a new pair at Walmart. What a shock to find out they don’t have them any more, except the leftovers in kids’ sizes. We really liked them! I can’t wear the dollar store kind because the fronts are different and bother my toes...

We got our $5.00 permit to move the R.V. in Newton, Texas, and dropped over to see my cat lady friend, Patty. She was just delighted to see us. She has had problems with the contractor getting her new house finished and is still living in the apartment down the road, with her dog and about 15 cats! Things are not going so well and with Hallowe’en approaching (she was broken into and assaulted a year ago on Hallowe’en) she finds herself very depressed. I was so glad we stopped in to make her day.

We were able to stay in our R.V. for the night after John pulled it up alongside the trailer the owners live in. Everything seemed to fine. However, Texas is having a VERY WET fall. There is much flooding. We had to clean the mould off our window ledges. Everything is damp.

Of course, just because we had to pull the R.V., the weather turned and it was rainy with gusting winds. Fortunately the winds were north/south, so we just drove into them. John said he could feel the gusts while driving, but we made it safely. There was no sense not traveling, as the forecast was the same right into the weekend, and we wanted to get here. While we were traveling though, the rain was very intermittent. For miles we’d drive and not have to have the windshield wipers going; then it would come down hard again for a few minutes, then ease off. Quite weird, actually…

The humidity was very high when we arrived, and the temperature was 80 degrees, so it was like being in a sauna. Everyone was using their air conditions, and then when you stepped outside, you got bowled over by the heat/humidity. However, it poured rain over night, and this morning, Friday, Oct. 30th, it is so chilly it feels like we should have the furnace on. Go figure! Kind of like Saskatchewan – if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute…

Our R.V. parking site is inside Ford Park, a huge complex on I-10 where they hold community events, about 10 times as big as Credit Union Place in Saskatoon. There is lots of grass around, but we are parked on concrete slabs and are in a fenced area with security. So we don’t have to worry about dragging sand into our RV’s or millions of mosquitoes. Of course we do have lots of traffic noise, which we are not used to.

Our homes to be renovated at Cheek, Texas, are about 5 miles down the road. We are advised that the first house we will be working on just required siding and soffit and fascia. There are 6 or 7 homes that are in the works for renovations.

So far we are only 3 couples – Jim and Annette are still on their way.

Today I will go over to the Tourist Information Centre “next door” (across the lot and in the next block). They said I could use their land phone to make my phone calls any time. Also have access to their computers which are for public use. So that’s good.

Have to go shopping for some groceries we need yet. Apparently Beaumont only has one Walmart (a surprise for such a large centre) and it is at the other end of town. I will have to find another place to get groceries that is closer. Will be interesting to get to know the city better.

Hi to all of you at home. I see that the weather is holding so far. Blessings to y’all.

On the way to Texas

2009-10-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

We enjoyed a short visit with Mom and Paul at Langenburg and then went to Brandon to spend a couple of days with Jake and Rita. Then headed down across the border, an easy crossing in the scheme of things, and drove through North Dakota. We stayed at Mitchell, South Dakota, the first night. Monday we drove through the rest of South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, so we made a lot of miles! Tomorrow we will take it easier.

Here at Ponca City, we “shopped” at two motels. We ended up staying at the Quality Inn, the second one we stopped at. The price was higher than I wanted to pay, but when I inquired as to whether there were many more motels down the way, I was not impressed to hear her say, “Yes there are many that way, but you really should stick to this side of town, as those are the type that there could be a mouse in your bed, or blood stains on the walls.” It did work though – we decided to take a room here. And a lovely room it is. We’ll see tomorrow how bad or good the motels look down the road. . .

Just checking in. Will write again later.

Finished addition/Going to Beaumont, Texas end of month

2009-10-18T18:51:00.000-07:00

October, 2009 Finishing renovation and getting ready to leave for Texas

Our “sun room” was coming together quickly. Now it was time to paint the walls. We made a feature wall of the common wall to the house. We painted it a “Gold Sunset” color, then sprayed white texture over it, and John trowelled down the texture, allowing some gold to show through. Despite the fact that it initially reminded John of “an old grain elevator where the birds had flown in and crapped on the walls for years”, we have had good comments and are happy with the result. We can always change it if we wish.

Then instead of buying new paint, we threw all the paint we had stored for years together and ended up with a warm beige color and did California walls – sprayed them with the mud and then painted over them. They REALLY look nice.

Next it was time to do the cathedral ceiling. This was a challenge because of the heights (two of them). However, John managed to set up the scaffolding with his ladders and an old conference table we had laying around from Sanderson Balicki. He did one half of the ceiling at a time. We had decided to go with marble ceilings, as we didn’t want regular textured ceilings. First he had to paint the ceiling with oil base paint on top of the primer. Then while it was still wet, he lit a cone of tarpaper on fire and smoked the ceiling. What an awesome sight!! Then he did the other half. It turned out beautifully!

The beam was painted plain white.

The following week, we hired a young man to lay the cobblestone lino and the room was looking great!

As soon as the lino was laid, we brought up John’s A & W table and chairs so we could sit and have our coffee at the window.

He then worked on building the large coat closet at the entrance. We decided to put our leftover laminate in the entrance, as I could not find lino I wanted for a price I was willing to pay.

It was a long deliberation as to exactly how the stairs should be built, but our neighbour John Vansil came up with an idea we hadn’t formerly considered, and we went with his suggestion. The stairs look very nice, and both the kitchen and sun room can be accessed from the landing.

We bought some pantries from Walmart and Jysk and John put them together to store all the things that I had in my former pantry.

Ted came over one evening and said he was here to help John put on the window casings. They didn’t quit until all 6 windows and the door were done. That made quite a difference as well.

That the left the stair railings to be done. We found some spindle rails at Habitat for Humanity for $1.00 a piece (compared to over $6 each at Rona) and painted them white. John built the railing and although it seemed to close off the two parts of the room, we are getting used to it and it looks lovely.

Had our “housewarming” party with a few friends and family over on Saturday night, the 17th, to thank them for all of their help.

Monday morning, we are having our A & W coffee friends over and then we can put our minds to getting ready to leave for Texas on Wednesday morning.

September, 2009

2009-10-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

Three brothers and wives - reunion

September crew

Mom even helped me wipe down the siding...

September, 2009

After Jake and Rita left for home, it was time for me to pay some serious attention to my mother in Langenburg. I left Shari in charge of the home front and keeping Dad and his crew stocked for coffee breaks. Mom and I had a wonderful time together for a week. We did a lot of things and enjoyed our one-on-one time.

By the time I got back home, the windows were in and the siding underway. Work continued the last two weeks of August. Our house is a dreadful mess, but the new sun room/entrance is just awesome. I enjoyed shopping for the light fixtures and floor coverings.

We decided to take time off to go to Brandon for a little family reunion with Jake and Rita. George and Mary drove out in their BarbieDoll camper, as John calls it, and we all enjoyed a very special 5 days together.

We had been trying to convince my Mom to take a little holiday too and come to our place, and she finally agreed. We brought her back with us when coming home from Brandon. Our lifestyle is definitely a lot more active than hers! Building going on, grandchildren coming and going, meals to prepare, always dishes to be done… I think she really enjoyed it, but was very happy to be getting on the bus to go home after a week and get some rest!

Saturday, Sept. 12, Darren came over and helped John put the drywall up on the high cathedral ceilings in the addition. Then he had some help from Kevin to do the walls over the next week, and before long I was able to tape the upper level while John and Kevin finished the siding on the long wall outside. It was really nice that Mom was able to be here for Darren’s 34th birthday on September 15th.

We even had a doozy of a hail storm while she was here. The thunder cracked and lightning flashed for about an hour, and then around 4:00 a.m., the rain came down in buckets, and then came the hail. Some of the hailstones were almost the size of golf balls. Our metal roof certainly amplified the sound of hail coming down! I thought I would be able to salvage my beautiful tomatoes, but they ended up rotting before they ripened. What a shame! The cherry tomato plans were loaded.

On the 21st of September, we marked the 10th anniversary of John’s heart attack. How those 10 years have flown by!

On my birthday, Bob and Alice and Ben and Mary came and brought farmer sausage for supper. Later, some of the neighbours came over as well. We had a lovely day.

We heard from MDS that we were assigned to Cheek, Texas for November and December this year. Our RV Park is on I10 at Beaumont. We have become quite familiar with that area so are pleased to be returning, and to learn that our Project Director and Office Manager are friends we have worked with previously. We look forward to working with another couple from last year, and to meet another new couple this year. We have to be in Beaumont by October 31st, so will be leaving home on October 21st, so we can stop in at my Mom’s for one night, and visit Jake and Rita in Brandon for one or two nights before we cross the border.

Finally we got some decent weather. The temperatures were up to 80 for a couple of weeks and we really enjoyed having a taste of summer anyway.

There is still plenty of work to do before the addition is finished, so the push is on to get the painting and ceiling done. Our neighbour, Kevin and his wife are going to Las Vegas for a week so he will not be available to help, and Ted is helping his son do sileage.

It has been a busy summer. Some people enjoy doing renovations and choosing decorating colours and stuff like that, but it is NOT my idea of fun. However, the end product will be worth the aggravation.

July and August, 2009 (supposed to be summer)

2009-08-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

Old Farts, Jake and Rita, almost look like they're having a good time!

Len and Nettie, plus another MDS volunteer we have worked with in the U.S. - Bruce from Medstead, Sask., who dropped by to visit and put up a TJI rafter or two...

Len and John dealing with the old electrical mast, a real thorn in their side

July was a busy month for us. John started working on the addition to our house. The plan is to build a 12 x 28 room where our sundeck and porch were. He has not been satisfied with the stability of the back porch for several years…

He removed the old sun deck and started working on the footings, with the assistance of our young neighbour, Kevin. Soon Kevin’s neighbour on the other side, Ted, was over “inspecting”, and before long, he was helping as well. They ended up pouring the cement in pouring rain on a Saturday morning. Darren came over and helped. Kevin and Darren wheelbarrowed the concete into the forms while John screeted and made sure the concrete went into the 10 foot sonotubes.

We were delighted to get a telephone call from Len and Nettie, our MDS co-workers from southern Manitoba, saying they were coming to help for a week. They parked their motorhome in our driveway and were a Godsend with all the work that was accomplished that week.

On the weekend of the 28th, John and I attended my High School Reunion in Langenburg . It was wonderful to see so many friends I hadn’t seen in years and years. John enjoyed it as well. My Mom was happy to have company if only for the weekend…

Then it was back to work on the addition. John’s brother, Jake and Rita, from Brandon arrived on August 4th and stayed the week to help as well. We had a wonderful visit and they contributed to the progress of the construction. It was a great week, with Kevin and Ted helping and even our neighbour, John, came from across the street for one morning. We were thankful for Darren’s help to get the last metal up on the roof at the end of the week. Coffee breaks were a great time of visiting and teasing – kind of reminds us of being in Texas!

Correction

2009-07-06T19:29:00.001-07:00

I was looking at my last couple of blogs and saw the picture of the garden shed which I had posted. Something didn't like right, and I realized that this was the garden shed I saw and had taken a picture of so John could see what I wanted.

The garden shed that he built is much nicer than the one on the previous blog. I am attaching a picture of the garden shed John built. I LOVE IT!

Happy Canada Day!

2009-07-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

Blog July 1, 2009

Just thought I’d check in to our blog after some more travels, and say Hi to all who are checking it.

Keely’s singing the Friday night before we left for B.C. was very nice. She did well and the audience enjoyed a new “act”. It’s always great when a person with talent can get a chance to use it!

We drove to Creston, B.C. to attend the graduation of Christy and Rod’s youngest daughter, Ceira Musil, leaving June 14th . Shari figured it was time she had some holidays TOO, so we packed up her and the dog (now that we only have one dog) and off we went. We visited over night with some friends at Strathmore and then spent the week at Gray Creek with Christy and Rod and family. Their other children came home as well. Bryce is in Victoria and Chelsea in Calgary. Daniel is working at the golf course at Crawford Bay, so he is still living at home. We enjoyed Granny’s “Bed and Breakfast”. Rod’s Dad passed away in February this year, so that ended their daily trek to Creston to take Virginia to see Joe!

Unfortunately, Ceira had broken her ankle while playing soccer at school on May 4th. She had to have a pin put in on one side and a steel plate on the other. She was still on crutches in her grad dress, but she had picked a lovely short grad dress, so that was no problem. She used wrist crutches and I swear she glided down that aisle on the arm of her escort as smoothly as anyone who was walking fully on both legs!

The graduation was lovely. There were only 12 grads so it was a small-town affair. You couldn’t tell by the hor’doerves served at the tea though – they were pretty hoity-toity! In addition, the main speaker to the grads was Peter Duryea. He is originally from L.A. (not La Ronge, Sk, but Los Angeles, CA) and the son of actor, Dan Duryea. His own claim to fame was being on the pilot episode of Star Trek. He is now older than we are and “a local”, running the Tipi Camp up the lake for many years. He gave an excellent speech, addressing each of the grads on a personal level. It was just great!

Then, as the 40th anniversary of Harry Haberstock’s tour of duty as Pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church which we attended while in Creston 20 years ago, was not until June 28th, we traveled down to Sandpoint Idaho to visit Peggy and Steve again. This time last year, John framed their new house and put on 4 x 8 metal siding. This year, they were able to purchase the windows and John and Steve put in the windows, a huge beautiful garden door and two other doors. Unfortunately, that job necessitated taking all the siding OFF as they went, installing the windows, and then putting the siding back on. However, the job was completed in the 4½ days we were there.

Shari had to obtain her passport in order to travel in the U.S.A. and Abby dog got her “passport” too – a paper saying she had her shots… She sure was a good dog – traveled well.

It was neat to see old friends at Pastor Harry’s anniversary celebration. Christy and Rod attended with us, but it was rather boring for them and Shari. She didn’t remember anyone. In addition to church friends, the community was there, and we were able to say Hi to people we had known through John’s business in Creston. The fellow who owned Creston Builders commented that John was the only guy who left Creston without owing him money!!! Of course, after over 20 years away, there were more faces we did not recognize than those we did! Our good friend and former neighbour at Kuskanook, Bryan Daybell, the retired principal of the high school in Creston, was the M.C. and he did an excellent job, as usual.

We only made one stop on the way home, to have coffee with Cathy Dietrich at Fort McLeod – John was determined to drive straight through and so we did – arriving home at 3:30 a.m. as daylight was breaking.

Rodney sent 8 tomato plants home with us, as he had a bunch volunteering in his strawberry patch. They survived the trip home and have transplanted well - we will see what kind of growing season we have and what kind of tomatoes we end up with…

In the morning, it was quite a shock to see our yard totally overgrown. They had rain just about every day we were gone. Thankfully, Darren managed to find one day when it didn’t rain and he mowed our lawn. My brand new gazing ball was sitting on the sun deck and it looked kind of strange – on checking closer, I found that the rain had washed all the finish off the outside, and all that remained was a clear glass ball. I don’t know whether they don’t “make them like they used to” or whether there really is acid rain and it took the finish off!!! Kind of scary…

Our Gizmo cat was VERY happy to have us home. Now he comes running at the first sign of the possibility of attention!

Shari and I enjoyed a sunny Canada Day at the Park with Darren and kids. Jeanie had to work. Then in the evening, it was finally dry enough to mow our lawn. I had also spent some time in the morning pulling more weeds. Now our yard looks much better!

Unfortunately there was a tornado touch down in North Battleford area. A couple of farm buildings were destroyed, but no one was hurt or killed, thank heaven.

John will be starting on the footings for our addition this week. I will not be able to handle being here for the demolition work (our back porch has to come off completely, so will be going to my mother's or ANYWHERE ELSE next week!!! I really hate to see my sun deck come down, but that's the plan.

June in Prince Albert

2009-06-09T13:01:00.000-07:00

Figured it’s about time to get back on the blog.

Coming back to Saskatchewan weather has been a big let-down! Our furnace died the end of May and we have had to use up all our wood in the fireplace in June. The evenings have been so cold that the fire place has required 80% of the time. This week, John went hunting for auxiliary electric heaters, it was so cold. Bummer…

We have had one or two days of nice warm weather, but then it cools off again.

John’s first project for the year was to replace our old metal garden shed. I had seen a very special “shed” in Saskatoon where he was measuring up windows and advised him that was the kind of garden shed I wanted. Living by the motto, “Happy Wife Happy Life”, he catered to my wishes and now we have the most beautiful garden shed in the neighbourhood. I found a small skylight at a garage sale in Langenburg, which is now in the roof of the garden shed. We also found two very nice 8’ wooden pillars at the Co-Op Auction, along with odds and ends of vinyl siding. Then at the CWL Annual Flea Market, I found a very nice new piece of vinyl flooring just the right size, for a whopping $3.50! The sign on the front of the structure says “IT’S JUST A GARDEN SHED!” I love it! In due course, our antique wood cook stove will be displayed on the end of the deck – I can hardly wait.

My sister and mother had a garage sale in Yorkton this past weekend, so I decided to go and help them. It started out on a bad note – my brother’s little Pomeranian, Kaylee, bit my Mom’s right index finger badly the first morning, as she tried to take Zoey’s dish of soft dog food away from her. Had to take her in for 8 stitches! Kaylee has always been very territorial about food, so basically Mom is taking the responsibility. Everyone acknowledges that had John been there, the dog would not longer be with us!!!!

The garage sale was fairly successful in that we got rid of most of Mom’s stuff that had been stored in Thelma’s garage since the last garage sale when she moved into her apartment.

Our old maroon van was acting up, and we came across a very nice one owner “little old lady driven” 1999 Plymouth Voyageur for a reasonable price, so decided that it would be more reliable to drive to B.C. for our granddaughter’s graduation on June 19th. We were advised of a computer problem involving the automatic door locks, by the previous owner, and figured we could get it fixed. It seems that is easier said than done. We tried two computers from auto salvage and neither one worked. So we may just take it with the door locks trying to lock every few minutes. It seems to run well despite the glitch.

Shari got her passport in time to come along with us. We will be traveling to Sandpoint, Idaho where John will put in Peggy and Steve’s windows, and she sure didn’t want to have to stay in Canada while we go “south”!! We have an extra week after the grad until our pastor’s retirement party at the end of June, so figured we could help the Farrells show some progress on their house for this year in order to keep their building permit in good standing.
This weekend on Friday evening, Keely, our 11 year old granddaughter, is going to sing at a Gospel Jamboree at Living Waters Bible Camp. She’s going to do “In the Highways and the Hedges” and “Let the Sun Shine In”. I’m sure she will do very well. She is very excited! Is growing up way too fast!! I had thought we could license the motorhome and take it out, but we stopped in to view the facilities recently, and there is not a lot of space for parking, let alone camping.

When we get back from B.C., John, with our neighbour’s assistance, will be taking down our sundeck and the back porch, and building an addition on the back of our house. I’ll hang around for a few days, but when the “tearing apart” of the porch happens, I’m out of here. The demolition is too hard on my constitution, and my being here would be hard on John! I’ll come back when the roof is on and the walls are up.

Well, I think that’s all the news to date. Hi to everyone who is checking this. I might let a few of you know that there is something new to read…

Hope y’all have a fine summer. Hope we have a summer at all…………the way things are going…

BACK AT HOME

2009-04-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

We’re back in the swing of things at home – missing Texas at the same time.

There is still plenty of snow.

We found our dear 91 year old friend, Helene Epp, had been in hospital for two months while we were gone and they just about lost her. Thankfully, she came ‘round and we were able to pay one visit to her in hospital, where she was her good old self, and then one visit in her new private care home, where she is getting adjusted to spend the rest of her life. She is such a sweetheart!

We have adjusted to life without Jughead. Feel sad for the loss sometimes, but we never did need TWO dogs.

Have had the grandchildren over several times and they are happy to have us back.

We’ve been plagued by car problems since coming home. Shari is looking for something reliable to drive, as the LeBaron is no longer reliable.

I am thankful to have my cataract surgery over and done with. It occurred yesterday and at my post op appointment today, they said it was a great success. I had been very trepidatious, as I am such a wuss. Could have used a couple more Adavan, but it’s all over and done with now, and I can see well out of the eye. Today I have my glasses on and they actually work well as they are. I do hope the other eye does not develop a cataract!!!! My eye doctor came with the highest of recommendations.

We are planning Easter at our house.

My Mom has requested the pleasure of our presence at her birthday party in Langenburg on April 22nd at SouthView. She will be 86. So we may also travel on to Brandon and see how things are doing out that way.

Darren’s job is working out quite well. It’s a bit of an adjustment for him, as he is on his feet all day. There was a stool they were allowed to use at the last place, but not here. Emily spent a couple of days with us instead of at day care, and can that little twerp ever put jigsaw puzzles together!

We have had e-mails from some of our MDS friends and are always happy to hear what they have been doing since we parted. One couple traveled back to Marble Falls to take in the home dedication there, so we got more photos which we really enjoy having. That was the house that John was the crew foreman for.

Although it’s very difficult to sit around and not have anything to do here at home, I and I am happy to say John is still a non-smoker. It gets a bit tense at times, but so far he’s gotten through the tough times.

So, we look forward to spring and cleaning up our yard. There may be some porch renovations in the plan, but we’ll see how it goes.

Hi to all who are still checking on our blog!

Blog 23 - the road home

2009-03-22T18:22:00.001-07:00

Goodbye Jughead, Boo Hoo

Greensburg, Kansas water tower

Parked for another summer

Thursday morning, we went to devotions, said our goodbyes and packed up our RV’s. It was so neat to see Judy waving us goodbye with her hanky with Mary and Pat standing by…

We parked our RV at the storage place we have found for this year near Jasper and soon were on the road.

We had a very good, but long, trip. The first night we spent at Durant, OK; the second night in Nebraska, the third night at Sterling, N.D. and we were home at 6:’30 p.m. on Sunday, March 15th. We arranged it so our route took us through Greensburg, Kansas, where we got some pictures and an excellent book written of stories by Christians who survived the tornado. Then when we got into Canada, we took the route through Rouleau, Sk., the site of the hit comedy series, Corner Gas. We’d never been there before.

We got home to bad news – unbeknownst to Shari, our little black Jughead puppy had got out of our yard because snow was piled up and the gate didn’t close all the way. She let both dogs out to run around in our fenced yard, as usual, and only the white one came back to the door. She spent the afternoon searching the neighbourhood and calling, to no avail. A neighbour drove her around asking everyone if they’d seen him – no luck. She called the SPCA and the R.M. dog pound, but nothing there. At first, we hoping that some kind person picked him up and brought him in out of the well below freezing temperatures, but it now appears that there is a problem with big dogs roaming in Redwing Terrace and there have been incidents of attacks on cats and smaller dogs. So poor Jughead was probably a casualty. That is our feeling, since Shari did not notice that Abby came in with a small bloody wound on her back just in front of her tail, and we have also found a small puncture wound on her side. She must have gotten back inside the yard and they couldn't in. Jughead wasn't so lucky!

In addition, Shari had also been having more problems with her car, so will have to be finding something better to drive. She had a couple of bad weeks there just before we came home, and was ready to have some back-up support!

Both of our kids and our grandchildren were happy to have us back. Emily got to spend a couple of days with us the first week home. We really enjoyed that!

We have had some very cold weather and some warmer weather since we arrived home. Winter is certainly not over yet!

Blog 22 - Final three days at Deweyville

2009-03-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

Our dear friend, Mary

His Highness, Howie the Hunk

Monday morning I helped John second coat some of the angles and he finished the cornerbead and flats with second coat. His helper, Howard, was able to help finish the siding.

Tuesday, there was nothing much I could help John with. He said I should take the day off to get everything ready in the R.V. for leaving. I packed up my clothes that I would be taking home and tried to organize what would be left and what we would take. I got to visit with Mary a bit that day too. In addition, there was a Tuesday morning Bible study at the church and they have a pot luck lunch. I didn’t go to the Bible study, but Pastor Brad invited me to lunch anyway, which was very nice.

Tuesday evening, I thought it would be nice for us all to get together, so suggested we have ice cream in the church kitchen. It was being used, so instead, everyone came over to our place. It was a wonderful evening, just like we used to all pack into our R.V. for parties at Johnson Bayou!! It made my week! Everyone brought their ice cream and their dishes, and some chairs.

Wednesday I felt I wanted to go to work and was able to help with some painting outside and cleaning up the paint brushes and trays. Mary came back with me for a while in the afternoon when I had to go back to the camp to pick something up.

John had a willing pupil in Howard to texture the ceilings and walls. Obviously, John’s tennis elbow was not going to allow him to carry that heavy hopper full of mud throughout the house. Don’t know what we’d have done without Howard since we started!!! Even he was “done in” by the end of the day – the whole house was textured with the exception of the bathroom which would be sanded and painted. Howard sprayed and John assisted. A job well done.

On Wednesday nights, the church provides a meal for the entire community, after which there is a general Bible study. The place is packed and the food is delicious. John and I decided we really should go so we could say goodbye to the wonderful people we had become acquainted with. After the supper, we left and then Paul and Mary came over to visit. Howard and Barbara came over later as well. Time is running out for visiting…

Mary and I are not looking forward to parting again…

Blog 21 - Working in Deweyville

2009-03-12T20:49:00.000-07:00

One other new couple arrived in Deweyville on Saturday, which made 8couples at devotions Monday morning:

• Don and Marilyn Buller, the couple who dreamed up the idea of the MDS Senior RV Program,
• Art and Judy Catlin, the Project directors,
• our dear friend, Paul Stoltzfus, the Crew Foreman, and his wife, Mary,
• Walt and Pat Willems, who we worked with on three projects,
• Walt’s brother, Vern and his wife Diane, with whom we had worked in Newton in November,
• Dick and Kathy Neudorf, and
• the new people from Ohio, Howard and Barbara Quast,
• and the Brauns from P.A.

We had suggested to Paul that we might be available if they really needed us and were ready for drywalling at the time we were leaving Marble Falls. Shortly thereafter, Project Director, Art Catlin made the official request that if at all possible, they would REALLY appreciate us coming and helping with the drywall. So John agreed to give them 10 days, as we have to be home the middle of March.

It was obvious that they needed some help desperately in order to finish the house by the end of March when the project is to close. When we arrived at the house on Monday morning, we learned it was still not ready to be boarded and the gyproc had not yet been ordered. The electrical was still being worked on and the air conditioning vents were not yet installed in the ceilings. John did a board count and Art ordered the gyproc. In the meantime, we did what we could to assist in other areas. I helped Diane put up some railing on the front deck and Barb and I did some siding. John helped us get set up with siding on Monday and on Tuesday he put up the ceiling on the front deck. The gyproc arrived just before noon on Tuesday and the men had to unload it. You sure couldn’t tell John’s elbow is shot.

We were very happy to see the men arrive to do the air conditioning vents just after lunch. They were done in short order.

The house was cleared out of all the other paraphernalia so when the gyproc arrived it would be reading to start boarding.

Wednesday, the gyproc arrived and the guys unloaded it. John and I and Howard and Barbara immediately started boarding. When the first bedroom was boarded, I started taping it and the others carried on with the second bedroom and the rest of the rooms. It was necessary to work Friday and Saturday to “get ‘er done”. By Saturday afternoon, it was completed boarded and taped, with the first coat on the cornerbead.

On Friday, Mary and I had a lovely day. We went on a road trip, with several missions:

1) Pick up Mary’s prescription at Mauriceville
2) Check out the thrift shops at Kirbyville
3) Go to Lowe’s in Jasper to see if we could find John a cornerbead clincher (no luck)
4) Visit my cat lady friend, Patty, at Newton. We got to see the apartment she is moving to while she is having a new house built.

John intended to work on Sunday, but decided to take a rest.

Sunday afternoon, after church and lunch out, Judy, Kathy, Pat and I traveled over to the Vidor Flea Market. Now I didn’t have to whine and snivel that I didn’t get to it…. I came away with no purchases, but it was really interesting to look for the last hour of the day! I thought I might find myself a pair of cowboy boots or some other treasure. Didn’t find any treasures or boots…

Blog 20 - Tragedy in Deweyville

2009-03-12T20:39:00.000-07:00

Our first night at Deweyville, we woke up at 4:00 a.m. to the sound of screeching tires and revving engines, then shortly afterwards, police sirens. We thought it was sure a noisier place than Smithwick (Marble Falls). In the morning, the news was that one of Deweyville’s finest young men, the quarterback of the highschool football team, and a ballplayer as well, had been killed in a truck accident. His buddy, a young man who attends the church which we are parked at, was with him, but sustained only minor injuries. It was a tremendous blow to this small community. The prayers and funeral were held at this very large First Baptist Church and there was not even room for everyone to get in. It was quite an experience to witness the mourning of our church friends and the community.

Blog 19 - Deweyville

2009-03-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

Deweyville camp

Marble Falls camp

The site at Marble Falls was probably the nicest R.V. site we’ve had since volunteering with MDS. It was a lovely country setting by a lake. The trees around Marble Falls were short bushy green trees, the kind you could paint really easily in a painting by just plopping your paint brush onto paper. We really enjoyed that area of Texas, with the rolling hills and valleys. It was very scenic and great vacation country.

By contrast, Deweyville’s countryside is flat and almost boring. The landscape is similar to Prince Albert. There are some lovely large homes, but also a lot of very poor people living in shacks and dilapidated house trailers.

The Lord has generously provided parking here at the First Baptist Church. They are very generous in the use of their facilities, including washer and dryer and men’s and ladies’ washrooms and showers in the church building. One downer is that we have to put away every tool or board that we use in one day, and pull the tool trailer and the supply trailer back home, and then take it back and unload it the next day. At Marble Falls, we did pack everything back into the tool trailer, but it stayed on the building site during the week.

the congregation at the First Baptist Church has been HOME to many of our volunteers. We have never experienced a group being "plugged in" to a church the way this one has. They have developed some very sincere, long-lasting friendships.

Blog 18 - Last week of work at Marble Falls

2009-03-05T19:43:00.001-08:00

Blog 18 - Final week at Marble Falls

It was a busy week. The goal was to get the drywalling done as far as possible. That was accomplished as much as possible without the plumbing having been done.

Monday morning, the insulation and gyproc were delivered. Nettie, Georgia, Annette and Linda got busy insulating the walls. The ceiling insulation was to have been blown in, but the lumberyard delivered R19 batts for the ceilings as well, so the decision was made to use them in the ceiling instead. As soon as the insulating was completed (with the exception of the kitchen and bathrooms), the guys started hanging board, and by Wednesday morning the ladies were able to start taping (mudding). By Thursday noon – quitting time – the three bedrooms were fully taped. We all felt a sense of extreme satisfaction in what we had accomplished in 15 ½ working days.

On Tuesday, we had the pleasure of a New Orleans style gumbo dinner hosted by the Denise and the Local Recovery Committee and brought to the Lodge at our camp. The gumbo (soup) was delicious and did not contain anything untoward that I would not eat. It was an excellent meal and a lovely evening. They refused to allow any of us to lift a finger to clean up, so we did some singing while they cleaned up.

On Wednesday evening, we had a BBQ at our camp, with guests, homeowner Debra, her husband, sweet little Granny whose husband had passed away two weeks ago, and Debra’s granddaughter, as well as our young worker, Alex Hebert, and homeowner, Patricia, her daughter, Alicia, and a nephew. Lots of good food and visiting. Time to say our farewells…

Thursday afternoon we did all our errands, filled the propane tank, picked up our RV permit to move it, and got our RV’s all cleaned up and ready to travel.

Friday morning, we pulled in the slides, packed up all the lines and hooked up the fifth wheel to the truck. It was very sad to part with the friends we have grown so close to over the last two months. There were hugs and tears and farewells – hope to see you again on a project – it’s been a great time!

Everyone watched to see if John’s puny little truck would pull that big rig up the first hill – it made it, and up the second hill as well, but it really didn’t like it. We were on our way to Deweyville, Texas, to help our good buddy, Paul, and the MDS crew there with the drywalling part of their project for the next 10 days.

By Friday at noon, there were only two campers remaining at the site: the new Project Managers from Winkler, Mb. and our dear friends, Len and Nettie, who are staying for March. In addition, the MDS Office trailer remains. The new volunteers will be moving in by the end of the weekend, ready to finish off what we have begun.

Blog 17 - Last weekend at Marble Falls

2009-03-05T19:35:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, we and Len and Nettie went to Burnet, as they had not yet been there. John and Len went through the small Aircraft Museum while Nettie and I checked out the Flea Market at the Mall. The Christmas Café was closed by the time we got there.

On our way out of town, we noticed the sign alongside the road indicating that there was free music at the Seniors Hall, so we decided to stop in. They said that they had excellent guest musicians from Germany who were going to be performing later and we would have liked to have heard them; however, we had to get through the local musicians first and they were not very good, so we left.

On Sunday morning, we were all invited to attend the church of our choice. Some went to the Smoking for Jesus Church, some went to Anchors for Hope, and as it was our last Sunday there, we were finally going to get to the Cowboy Church down the road. Len and Nettie attended with us. It was a very nice service. Attendance was 54 people and 4 dogs. The 4 dogs have been regular attenders…

I would sure be interested to know how many people are reading this blog. Please drop me a line at our e-mail address to let me know if it is worthwhile doing it… Thanks.

Blog 16 - Work wee of Feb 16/09

2009-02-22T11:39:00.000-08:00

Siding the house

Gift for Warren and Carol

Goodbye Sherm and LaVonne

Everyone was excited to get back to the work site after another LONG weekend.

John and his crew were busy stabilizing the trusses, sheathing the roof, finishing the skirting and carrying on with the siding. The roof was built over the front deck and both decks were finished, soffitting and fascia were started. After word last week that yet another MDS volunteer had fallen off the roof at Deweyville and broken his heal, safety was uppermost is our minds and thankfully the work proceeded with no casualties.

I helped finish painting the doors and door frame materials at the camp site work shop and on Thursday, they were picked up and taken to the job site where they would be assembled.

At one of our morning devotions recently, Warren had presented us each with a granite cross with Marble Falls printed on it as a token of his appreciation for the great crew we have.

It was agreed by our crew that we also sincerely appreciated his leadership as Project Director and that we would all throw in some money to get he and Carol a gift.

At Wednesday morning devotions, John presented the gift to Warren and Carol. As they are bird lovers, he had searched to find something appropriate. When we were at the antique and collectible stores in Gruene, a lovely “affordable” ceramic birdhouse caught his eye. Then he found a beautiful ceramic cardinal for Carol and a carved wood bird sitting on a log for Warren. Jim built an 8 sided base so we could each sign our names along the edge. John glued the birdhouse and the birds onto the base and it was a work of art. Warren and Carol were thrilled with it and said it was going to sit on the mantle in the “great room” in Albuquerque.

On Wednesday evening, we had a farewell supper for Sherman (Tank) and LaVonne (Short Stuff). Mary Anne and Pete made heart shaped waffles on their propane cooker and we each brought “accessories” – farmer sausage, vanilla sauce, syrup, strawberries, hot blueberry topping, whipped cream, and ice cream, No dessert needed for this meal!!! Joanne made a very nice “farewell” banner and drew a perfect likeness of their faces on it. She sure is a talented artist.

LaVonne had signed up to do devotions their last day here, but it proved more difficult than she had thought it would be. She picked my Grandma’s favorite hymn to sing although it has different words in the hymnal we were using – it was the old favorite “God Loves Me Dearly”. More than a few tears were shed by the time the devotion was over.

They pulled out after many hugs of goodbye and lots of tears. Who would’ve thought we could bond so closely in such a short time. LaVonne would have won the “Miss Congeniality” contest in our group. John called her “the real boss” in addition to “Short Stuff”. Sherman would always come out of their R.V. in the morning with a big welcoming grin and a HOWDY for everyone. We wished them God’s speed and sae traveling home to Ohio, and all look forward to working with them again some day.

As an aside, we have seen many ant hills at our camp site, but it is quite evident by the round holes all over the ground that the armadillos, which must come out at night, have been routing them out. Wish we could see them in action!!

Blog 15, New Braunfels, Texas

2009-02-22T11:27:00.000-08:00

Wonderful accommodation

Good Buddies

Valentine Weekend at Wyndham Resort Time Share, New Braunfels, Texas

Finally, the weekend we had been waiting for: courtesy of Steve and Peggy, we had the pleasure of utilizing their time share - which we picked for New Braunfels, near San Antonio, for our three day long weekend Valentines Day. We had invited Paul and Mary Stoltzfus who are at Deweyville, as well as Len and Nettie Hiebert, who are working with us here this year. We took Len’s little Jeep, with Len driving. Paul and Mary rented a spiffy red car and met us at New Braunfels. We both arrived at about the same time. They had over 6 hours to drive while our driving time was about 1 ½ hours.

Check in time Friday was 4:00 p.m., so after we checked in, we just went out for supper and then back “home” to visit. Saturday was a big day, as we were to meet our MDS crew at the River Walk in San Antonio. We also toured an ancient Mission, saw “The Alamo” movie at the IMAX Theatre (which of course was very violent because it was a war scene), walked around the Alamo ruins/gift shops and then joined the million other people who were on the River Walk for Valentines Day. We had planned to eat at the Rain Forest Café, where the "ambiance" is a jungle atmosphere, but it was so packed and there was a 3 hour wait, so we decided to go to the Golden Buffet on the way home instead. It’s a good thing we only took one vehicle downtown, because it was a nightmare driving down there. John sat in the back of the Jeep and was not uncomfortable.

Sunday morning, instead of going to church, we sort of had our own little church service and visited some more. Then took some pictures, and Paul and Mary headed off back to Deweyville. The four of us remaining went over to the historic townsite of Gruene and had lunch at a restored Grist Mill. I wish Paul and Mary could have come there too, as they would have really enjoyed it. No time…

We checked out and traveled back to Marble Falls a different route, past one of the most gorgeous vacation areas in Texas we’ve seen so far. One of the signs at a resort said “Elvis tubed here”. I finally got to stop and take pictures at the granite lighthouse which we have driven by several times, just out of Marble Falls …

Our “time share” weekend was a great time of fun and fellowship with friends in a different environment!

Blog 14 - Wednesday BBQ

2009-02-16T17:40:00.000-08:00

BBQ Wednesday, Feb 11th

Rather than having a pot luck this week, we decided to have a “cook out” as some of the Americans call it down here. We each provided our own meat and then each brought something extra.

Young Alex joined us, even though it we had to start without him.

John had picked out his own steak and we barbequed our steaks on Len’s BBQ. It was a lovely evening, despite the storm the night before. Later on, it got cooler and we didn’t stay out past 8:00.

After eating, Gerry led us in some singing.

The Camp Director, Mel, drove down to go fishing in the river as we were eating, and when he came back up, he said he could hear us singing all the way to where he was, and he thought we sounded great!!!

Blog 13 - Marble Falls work week Feb. 9/09

2009-02-16T15:31:00.000-08:00

House Looking Good...

A local country radio station out of Austin, KVET, entertains us every morning when our alarm goes off. It keeps us from being too homesick for CJWW, Saskatoon. Bucky and Bob are our “Moo Crew” these days - they play lots of our favorite classic country.

I CANNOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING THAT GOT ACCOMPLISHED BY THE END OF THIS FOUR DAY WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At about 9:00 a.m. Monday morning, the trusses arrived at the building site. John and his crew were so excited about getting the trusses up and the roof on as soon as possible. However, upon eyeballing the trusses on the truck, something didn’t look right to him. Before unloading them, he asked to measure them. Sure enough, the trusses were 26’ instead of 28’. Turns out the person with the Texas authority responsible for ordering the trusses ordered them for the wrong house plan. Estimated time to get new trusses – at least 8 days. What a disappointment!

As the truck with the trusses drove away, it was necessary to find some other work to keep 14 people busy! Annette, Georgie and LaVonne working together, and Nettie, Suzette and I, working together, began the task of stapling up the insulation underneath the house – the space under the house varies from 36 inches to 18 inches. We spent the day basically on our backs.

Some of the guys put up interior walls and some started working on the front and back decks.

Tuesday, I didn’t go to work because I think I strained a pectoral muscle in my chest maneuvering around under the house. The other girls continued.

Tuesday evening we experienced some severe weather in Texas. Weather forecasting the way it is done here is totally different than in Canada. They can forecast all the weather they want in Canada, and 90% of the time it is inaccurate. However, the Austin T.V. station was giving weather forecasts of such a specific nature, it was uncanny! They were tracking a severe storm with 40-50 mph winds, rain and medium size hail, that they said would be a “quickie” – it was to hit certain areas at 9:35, and then certain areas south at 9:50, etc. etc. It was scheduled to go through Marble Falls and Smithwick at precisely the time the wind started blowing here. The rain pounded down and hailstones pummeled our R.V., for about 10-15 minutes, then it was over. The wind continued for the most of the night and we thought our R.V.’s were going to take flight. It was very upsetting to learn in the morning that 8 people had died in a tornado in and near Oklahoma City, just north of us.

The next day, everything was clear and sunny and we had the most beautiful warm day!

Wednesday, Andre helped Len install the windows and then several of the crew put up the Tyvec vapour barrier all around the house. Now we had a house with windows and a door, and no roof! On Wednesday afternoon, Warren received a call from the truss company that the trusses would be delivered Thursday morning. That was a big surprise! He was also advised at that time that unfortunately no crane would be available to put the trusses up onto the roof until Friday, which is not a work day for us, so we would have to wait until Monday…

On Wednesday, some of the crew started stapling up the chicken wire to hold up insulation under the house so it could not fall down.

Thursday morning, Ron and Sherman (aka Tank) continued building the decks. LaVonne (aka Short Stuff) was doing siding with Pete and Gerry. Nettie and Georgia were cutting the spindles, routering the edges and pre-drilling them. Len and Andre finished installing the doors and door locks.

Joanne, MaryAnne, Suzette and I worked at the camp, sanding the used veneer interior doors so we could paint them white. I had delivered the doors to the mechanic’s shop at our camp from the storage unit where they have been stored. We started priming the doors and worked until we ran out of primer. About that time, we received word from Warren that the crane truck was indeed going to be available around 2:00 p.m. so the trusses would be going up after all. Everyone left back at the camp agreed we didn’t want to miss that, so we all hopped into vehicles and drove out to Granite Shoals to witness and film the trusses going up.

It was quite a sight! Once the crew got organized as to who was doing what, the job went smoothly, and in 2 hours, the trusses were all up. John got a big sliver at the bottom of the thumb on his left hand on about the second truss, but stayed up on the wall arranging trusses until all 23 were up and in place. As soon as he got down, he performed some minor surgery with his utility knife (with all the women cringing and looking away, including the former nurse) and the sliver was out. Suzette and Andre treated us to their “BRAVO” song in French to celebrate a job well done. I tried to video it, but was disappointed that it didn’t turn out…

Blog 12 - First weekend of February

2009-02-11T18:22:00.000-08:00

Downtown Luckenbach, Texas

I forgot to mention – Verna and Jake returned from Belize and Mexico on Thursday. They drove right out to the building site and we crossed paths as the ladies drove out of Granite Shoals. After getting some groceries, they arrived on our site and pulled out their slides for the night. I invited them for supper and we had a nice visit. Later in the evening most of the other volunteers came over and visited as well. It’s been a long time since we had so many guests…

Friday morning, a bunch of us headed for breakfast at the Blue Bonnet Café, Jake and Verna’s favorite haunt.

John and I then drove to Fredericksburg, about 60 miles away, to see the sights there. We had missed that trip when we went to Newton. We drove through Johnson City and found a place that sold granite just past the city. We stopped and the store owner said we could help ourselves to whatever cutoff pieces we wanted, so we did.

Then we continued on to Fredericksburg, a tourist city with a German flavour. We watched a 9 minute movie at the Tourist Information Centre and then looked for a place to eat. Fancy meeting Gerry and Georgia from our MDS group at the restaurant, and then at the Vereins Kirche Pioneer Museum…

We also found a Goodwill Store and I was able to spend a little while looking around.

Luckenbach, Texas, was our next destination. It was not easy to find. We drove down Highway 1376 and there was no sign of it. Finally, there was a yard with a sign saying “Uptown Luckenbach”. It looked sort of like a garage sale yard with granite knickknacks, and a little store behind with Luckenbach T-shirts and souvenirs. No one was inside the store, but there was a handwritten sign saying “I’ve just had major surgery, so if there’s no one here, if you find something you want to buy, just put the money in the pipe outside”. There was no sign of a music stage or anything. Then we saw another handwritten sign in the back which said “Downtown Luckenbach is one mile down the road and turn right at the bridge”. So that’s what we did. Still, no noticeable turn-off sign, but we drove down the lane and soon saw a Parking Lot sign and people milling about. We drove into the main yard and it was apparent they only allowed their entertainers with instruments, and handicap parking there. So after parking our car in the right parking lot, we walked over to this very unique place called “Luckenbach, Texas”. IT IS as they say in the song, a low-key, down home, “good ole’ boy place. The only buildings located in Luckenbach, Texas, besides two Portable Bathrooms which greet you on the way in are: a Post Office with a very small bar in the back; a little rustic building which sells hats and boots, another small rustic building which is covered on the front wall with license plates, and a very plain fairly large dancehall with a concession stand attached. Oh, I forgot the huge tame longhorn steer which greeted us as we first walked through. A tall lanky, mustached cowboy offered to let us sit in the saddle on the steer (for a small donation), which offer we declined. Some time later, we heard the clop of hooves and before we knew it, the cowboy was galloping past us down the road on this steer. What a sight! I never would have thought the steer could move that smoothly. And lo and behold, who drove into the yard but – Gerry and Georgia. I guess we could have traveled together…

Jake and Verna headed out for Newton at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday.

Pretty well everyone on the site went out touring or shopping on Saturday. John and I went shopping and got propane. Len and Nettie arrived in mid afternoon. We were delighted to see them and thankful they had an excellent trip.

Saturday night, we were invited to go over to Sherman and LaVonne’s R.V. We played a couple of games of STIX and then came home to bed.

We had intended to go to the Cowboy Church on Sunday, but decided to go with the group instead, to Alex’s Anchor of Hope Their congregation was delighted to have 18 additional seats taken, their service was lively and the people very friendly.

After church, we pigged out at the Lucky Chinese Buffet, where, among other things, John had a plate full of the ugliest crawfish I ever saw! Lots of work for a little food!!

Sunday afternoon, Len and Nettie and us got into our truck and went to show them the building site. Then we decided to take them to the Longhorn Cavern area which we had already seen. It was a nice drive and we saw more of the site this time. When we got back to the camp around 5:30, Suzette kindly invited us to their R.V. for soup (nobody was very hungry after the buffet at noon)!! We spent the evening visiting and relaxing before having to go back to work Monday morning.

Blog 11 Week of Feb. 2nd

2009-02-08T18:36:00.001-08:00

Here I am stapling up insulation under the house

Blog 11 – First week of February

Construction of the new house is finally underway. Most of the ladies went straight to work at the house. Carol and I, who are not “into” doing the actual construction work (we’ll be there when it’s time to mud and paint) had a side job to work on. A couple of the men had gone and fixed Mr. Edwin’s bathroom and it now required painting, which job was assigned to Carol and I. We got the prime coat painted and then had intended to go back in the afternoon and paint the final coat and put some of his belongings back into his office room; however, he said he had to go out and we should call him later if we wanted to come back. “Later” never happened, as when we got back to the home-building site, which is in the same community, we learned that our Project Director, Warren, (Carol’s husband) had to be taken to Minor Emergency with a finger injury which would require stitches. So then Carol and I went over to the clinic to see how bad it was. She waited there until Warren was finished, and I went on my merry way to Walmart and the Dollar Store to pick up some things I needed. He didn’t exactly lose the top of his finger, but it required some inventive stitching on the part of the doctor. Ironically, he had to meet the building supply truck at the site at 7:30 a.m. and had not been at devotions that morning when we prayed for safety on the job site. . .

By the end of the first day, the back 43 foot wall was up and nailed in place!

It turned out to be a lovely sunny day. Apparently the Newton group has had lots of rain and some hail, so their building project has been slowed down. Here, we are dry as a tinderbox and are reluctant to pray for rain because the last significant rain was 19 inches in 3 hours!!! Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, “It never rains but it pours”.

Tuesday, Feb. 3, was the one year anniversary of our friend/neighbour, Vimy’s passing. It was very interesting to see a gentleman at church last Sunday whose profile very much resembled Vimy!

Our friends, Len and Nettie, from Manitoba, will be on their way here tomorrow morning. We are very thankful to learn that their daughter-in-law’s back surgery in Germany was successful. Hopefully they will have a good trip and we look forward to seeing them and working and playing with them again. Their motorhome is parked behind us awaiting their arrival.

Today on the radio, there were murmurings about what’s happening in Washington that indicate “the honeymoon is over”. The newscaster was hoping President Obama can stand up to the people he has put into high positions in his Government to keep on the course that he promised Americans for economic recovery, rather than cave to their special interests.

On Tuesday, Carol and I went back to finish painting at Mr. Fortner’s. He wasn’t ready for us to put the boxes back in his office yet, as he says he has to go through them and discard what isn’t needed any more. Good news!

The rest of the ladies worked at the site and by the end of the day, they had the floor sheeted and screwed down while the men were building walls.

Wednesday, the ladies didn’t go to work, but we went just before noon to see the next walls go up. They had quite an “audience” for the raising. This was the day that the Granite Shoals Methodist Church sends a bag lunch for all of our group, so Alex arrived with lunch. Denise, the other Local Recovery Committee worker, also showed up but not in time to see the walls raised. . .

Thursday I went to work with three of the other girls and we started insulating under the floor. All of the walls are up and the men are working on the interior walls. The trusses are scheduled to arrive next Monday. Not bad for a four day work week!