Month: January 2018

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

We left Enterprise about 10:00 this morning after a loving send off by our team.  We are currently spending the night in the Lowe’s parking lot in Troy, Alabama. Anne’s mom had another stroke this morning and is now experiencing the joys of heaven. We are only about three hours from Mama Ruby’s house but are too tired to go any further. This will give us a quiet night together before we have to face everything tomorrow. The blog may be quiet for a few days. We would appreciate your prayers for our family.

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

It started raining during the night and was still raining when we got up this morning. It also never really cooled of last night. It was 66 this morning. The rain stopped by about 8:00 and slowly the clouds departed and we had another beautiful day. It was 78 when we stopped for lunch and we don’t know the high but it was hot working out in the sun today. Yep, this time last week we were complaining about being too cold. We will not complain about the heat. We are having beautiful weather, even if we are sweating.

Ruth and Mike brought us another great devotion this morning which was based on the story of Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednego. They reminded us that in good times or bad God is always with us and for us. Ruth and Mike always end their devotion time with a little funny. Today’s was so funny we all continued to laugh even after we should have stopped. We will have to see if we can get a copy of that one and share with you.

Max, Anne and Mike started the day cleaning up all the left over wood and supplies at the water treatment plant. After returning everything to the maintenance building we began gathering supplies for our next project. We will be laying some brick at a house that was converted to an early childhood center. A garage door was removed and the garage made into a classroom. We laid the first course of brick today and are letting it setup overnight and will continue tomorrow. Another new skill.

Jo, Mark and Chris continued to work on removing the old fence and cleaning up around the new fence. This was another big and hot job. They made great progress on that project today. Ruth, Kathy, Carol and Laura were back working on the front porch a one of the cottages. Another hot job today but one we think they completed. Bob worked on refinishing a couple of signs for the picnic pavilion and then worked on lights with Lee. We all again stayed very busy, especially Kathy and Terry, just keeping the 12 of us headed in the right direction, keeping us in supplies and answering calls for assistance. We are making good progress but will continue to have to push to complete everything by noon on Thursday.

After work today we rode back out to check on the eagles. We only saw one of the parents today. We suspect there are babies in the nest based on the various nest cameras in other areas but we didn’t see the parents bring any food back to the nest or any activity other than one eagle sitting in the nest with its head barely visible. We didn’t stay out at the nest very long and then rode back to Green Springs park. This time we decided to visit the park’s namesake spring. Yep, it’s a green spring. Real green, and somewhat smaller than we expected. But it’s a nice little park and worth the stop.

By the way, Mama Ruby, Anne’s mom, is sick and we would appreciate your prayers for her.

Monday, January 22, 2018

Another wonderful day in Florida. This is what you hope far when you plan a winter trip here. It was 55 when we got up this morning, with heavy fog in the area but none right around us. By lunch it was 80 degrees with sunshine and some scattered clouds. Love it!

After another good devotion by Kathy and Terry, we all headed back out to work. Today Max and Anne were assigned to the water treatment plant to work on finishing up the final items. We installed fascia boards on the shed along with the drip edge. We also repaired a gate to the treatment plant.  The final (for now) job was the completion of the roof repairs to the metal roof on the generator building.  Kathy and Jo also painted the pumphouse today. It looks so nice. Lots of team members contributed to that structure and it is now complete.

Mike and Chris replaced some outside light fixtures at one of the cottages and continued their work in the chapel. Don’t think they are quite through there but are in the clean up stage. Lee and Bob continued to work on the replacement of light bulbs and fixtures, as needed across campus. We think Lee said he replaced 36 bulbs in one building. That’s a lot of trips up and down a ladder. Terry and Mark tore down and disposed of the old wooden fence now that the chain link fence is finished. Laura, Ruth and Carol went back to the duplex we were painting on Thursday. Not positive but we think they finished there and went back to the cottage we worked on last week, painting the porch. We only have three days left, actually 2 ½ because there are throwing us a cookout at lunch Thursday and we will spend the afternoon sorting and packing up all the tools. Anyway, we are trying to finish up everything we have started. We made really good progress on that today. We may get some rain tomorrow, so that may slow us down a little but it looks like we will complete all the high priority jobs they had for us.

After work Max enjoyed watching Terry fly his drone. Max is still interested and we may have a drone in our future. We shall see. We also walked down to the Publix and picked up a few items. It is such a treat to just be able to walk to the grocery store on a beautiful afternoon. After that we just sat outside and read. Another wonderful day. Thank you God for the blessings.