The Last Day of the Month

It's hard to believe that's been a month since we started here at the MDS project in Dulzura! We are already looking to see what we will be able to accomplish during the next month while we are here.

This is a picture that Elsie sent me from their house dedication last week. The homeowner Steve says "I'm his other daughter!"

We were DELIGHTED this morning to pass the Rural Fire Marshal's inspection of House #1! (Which we had to have done before we could do the final final inspection!) She was very complimentary about the way the house looked and the only thing she dinged us about was that there was no house number on the house itself! Even though the number is in large letters on the sign at the end of the lane -- and there is no other house up the lane. But, that's an easy fix.

Now we just need to have the FEMA lady get back to us to us about moving the FEMA trailer out which HAS to be done in order to pass the final inspection.

A Good Monday --

It was a good day today. After we got the crews off to work, we went over to prospective House #5 for the well test. We got there before the gentleman from the county environmental services arrived and tested the water one more time. We turned on the pump, caught some water in a small glass, added the special tablet and watched it stay nice and clear -- indicating no chlorine. Went walking around the property with the homeowner, who had stayed home from work for the test. We looked at her garden; checked out her fruit trees and flowers; found out that the lovely flowering vine that I had been admiring was jasmine; played with her puppy; watched and tried to identify several birds -- scrub jays, California towhees, ring neck doves; all while waiting for the fellow to show up.

The inspector finally arrived, we walked over to the well head with him and saw to our horror that the glass of water we had originally sampled had turned pink! He laughed though and said that that happened when the treated water sat out in the sun for a while! Forry turned on the pump again, he got his sample, dropped in the tablet and it stayed clear! He also checked for nitrates -- his test strip showed a small amount present, but way below the allowed percentage. So far so good. The inspector than took a sterile bottle and caught a sample that he will send on to the lab to check for e. coli and other bacteria. We should have the results by Wednesday or Thursday. Then they can get the permit for the septic system. Then we can get the building permit for the house...

Because the water inspector had been late, I was late getting into town for my meeting with the Local Recovery Committee, but it was okay and we had a good meeting and got several things ironed out.

After I returned to camp, I got a bit of work done, then Forry invited me to go with him up to House #4 to deliver some bags of cement for the porches they were pouring there. I had not seen the house since they got the floor joists in. The plumber was there installing water and sewer pipes under the joists. This will have to wait until Thursday to be inspected before the fellows can lay the floor. Our regular inspection days are Tuesdays and Thursdays, but the County is taking tomorrow off for Caesar Chevez day.

We had our Wednesday night special night tonight. I had invited the owners of house #1 and their daughter Tammy to dinner (partly because I wanted to visit a bit more with Tammy before she returned home!). Steve shared his pictures of the fire that destroyed their Bible camp along with their home and shared his testimony with the young volunteers that are here. He's a great speaker and several of the youngsters wanted to have their pictures taken with him and his family afterwards.

Tomorrow morning we will have the final Fire Inspection for House #1 which we have to have signed off before we can have the final house inspection... Keep us in your thoughts and prayers that this inspection goes well!

USS Midway

One of the retired fellows who builds the sheds our clients have at their new homes is ex-Navy. He had invited us to tour the Aircraft Carrier USS Midway which is permanently retired here in San Diego Bay.

He was able to get the 8 of us long-termers free VIP passes to tour the ship today. We all went to the early service at Jamul Community Church, had a quick lunch at Rubios (Mexican fast food chains that are all over southern California), then met him at the ship at noon.

The Midway is immense. It had 4500 personnel on board when it was on active duty; was commissioned in 1945; was remodeled twice (once to put in an angled runway and the second time to expand its length) and served until after the first Gulf War. The following two pictures are views from "the island" (the helm) looking down at either end of the runway:

The next picture is one of the docents (who were all retired aircraft carrier Navy) explaining to us how the catapults worked:

We spent three hours on board and I'm sure we saw less than half of it. They give you little recorders with headphones and you can stop at any of the numbered spots and listen to the information about it. Then there were several spots like the one above where docents explained some of the more complicated stuff. The ship has examples of all the retired Navy aircraft that ever flew off the carrier.

We tried to stop for ice cream on the way home but couldn't find a Dairy Queen or even a McDonalds that had some. So came home and ate leftover pizza.

We have a large group (19) of volunteers who drove all the way from Manitoba, Canada in a bus. They arrived a little after eight this evening. They have several children with them -- I guess we'll send them out on the job with their parents...

Day of Rest -- Well, sort of...

I slept in this morning until 7 AM! (We usually have breakfast at 7...), It felt good, but I would have loved to stay in bed even longer...


Four of our long-termers left yesterday. Crew Leaders Dennis and Sue finished up their two months yesterday and headed out after the house dedication for a few days of vacation and then home to Canada. Our cooks had a brother-in-law pass away yesterday, so they headed back to Canada this morning as well. The staff at headquarters is looking for replacements for the cooks, but it may be a day or two. Our camp hostess Phyllis has been helping the cooks with lunch fixings for crew bag lunches, so she'll be taking the lead until new cooks arrive -- with lots of help from everyone else, I hope.


We went to the airport this morning to pick up a young new long-termer. Joel flew in from the Toronto, Ontario area. He'll be with us for a month. We needed more tile for the bathroom at House #2, so made a stop at Home Depot, then Barnes and Noble to pick up a bird book for our newest clients.


We got back to camp in time for me to try to take a nap and actually get some reading done. By 5:45 everyone had returned from their various day trips. We loaded up the van and headed into the nearby village of Jamul for antipasto salad and pizza at Filippi's. Tammy (daughter of House #1's owners) had sent me a YELP about how good the pizza was there and she sure know what she was talking about. The large pizzas were huge -- more like giant or jumbo ones at home. We brought enough home for supper tomorrow night.

Day of Celebration!

What an exciting day! The dedication for House #1 was today!

We woke up to wind, steady gusts of wind, warm wind, but wind none the less. (Tonight it is very warm and calm...!) We had planned to set up tables outside for refreshments, but decided we had best set everything up in the house. The cooks and I drove up early in order to get the coffee started and make sure everything was set. I went to trim the ends of the ribbon I had bought for the ribbon cutting and discovered that the pair of scissors I had grabbed from the drawer before I left was so dull, it barely even chewed the ribbon , let alone cut it! I very quickly went over to the FEMA trailer where Elsie rescued me with a pair. It was a little pair, but it did the job! The picture below shows the homeowners, Elsie and Steve cutting the ribbon:

Note the "welcome mat" that was brought by the representatives of the Salvation Army. There were about forty people there -- a nice crowd including the previous project directors, Kerry and Jo who drove over from their vacation in Palm Springs.

A new quilt came from the women of Portland Mennonite Church:

A beautiful wall hanging from Mennonite Women USA:

And daughter Tammy and I presented her parents with a new Bible from MDS:

(Tammy conspired with me to chose the appropriate Bible for her parents.)

The houseowners pastor said the prayer of blessing:

Then we moved to the inside of the house to sing "Bless This House":

It was a beautiful day -- even with the wind!

The Route to House #4

I was up at House #4 yesterday and took some pictures of the road on the way:

The shrub above is blooming along the roads, one of the homeowners told me it's called a tobacco tree.
The one below is brittle bush -- it's been blooming all over in the ditchs for over a month now:

This is the gate on the road a mile or two before you get to the house:

These are trees along the road that were scorched pretty good by the fires -- but they're trying very hard to survive:

But there's a lot of stuff that didn't make it:

These roads are fun to drive on -- and the views are spectacular:

Everyone tells us that we're here at the most beautiful time of the year. In a month or two, everything will be brown and dry.

Sad End to a Long Day...

Today was a busy day. I took a draft of the program for the house dedication up to House #1 for approval by the homeowners. They are a delightful pair and it is always fun to visit with them, even for a short time.

Since I was close I drove on up to House #4 to see how the floor joists were coming along. I had a chance to sit and visit with the homeowner there as while. The foundation is beginning to look like there will be a house there -- it's amazing how much it changes when you start putting wood on the concrete.

Came back to camp and started printing programs, which since I only have a little HP printer, had to be hand-fed in order to do a two-sided program. But, I got them done! I just wish I had some idea of just how many people might be there on Friday.

Around four we went back to potential House #5 to recheck the water for chlorine. We didn't find a trace of it, even using the new DPD pills. Hopefully it will stay that way as we keep checking it during the week. It's very gratifying when the homeowner meets you with a hug. The case worker was a bit apologetic about my having to continually recheck the water, but I told her it was giving me a chance to build a relationship before we even start building the house.

Shortly after we returned to camp I got a telephone call from my dearly beloved friend Phyl. She had had another MRI this week and the doctor seems to think that the brain tumor she has been fighting over the past year is recurring... Please keep her and her family and her doctors in your prayers as they decide what next to do. It's times like this that make me wish we weren't so far away!

How many miles today?

I wish we had kept track! Stop at Rancho San Diego corner to go the bank to get cash, check. Over to Target for paper for programs, ribbon for the ribbon cutting, a game of Skip-bo requested by the crew, check. Hey, they have a Starbucks stand, get a latte for me and a mocha for Forry.

Then off to National City to Sid's Carpet Barn to get carpet samples for House #3. Manager who had provided carpet for House #1 not there, he's at the local radio station recording a commercial. Salesman standing by offers to help. He and office manager look for prior invoice to find amounts, price range, etc.; not under client's name; not under CRT or Community Reconstruction Team, whose name is on the credit card used; not under Mennonite Disaster Service! Forry finally suggests looking under MDS, sure enough, there it is! Find four samples of brown flecked carpet.

From there to Chula Vista to a Home Depot for paint -- 30 gallons of it! Laminate flooring, hmm, 8 boxes of Hickory for House #3, 32 boxes of Oak for House #2 (no carpets for that house!) check, oops, we need 13 more boxes. Tile for bathrooms and laundry rooms, check. Paint rollers, sleeves of paint roller covers, paint brushes, check. Ear plugs, shop rags, drywall screws, check. Time to check out. Let's see, that cart all goes to House #3; no, those two things go to #1; that cart gets charged to House #2; oops, wait a minute, all that stuff on that end gets charged to MDS. Nice young man comes to help load five gallon pails of paint and the flooring into pickup. Stop by the vendor outside the store and buy two Polish dogs, get sauerkraut for Forry's; order diet Coke; clerk starts to fill, machine starts sputtering. Clerk apologizes, says she doesn't have another bottle. Buy two glasses of iced tea.

Oh, oh, an email on my iPhone from the environmental water guy says to contact him ASAP -- call him, he says we need to go to El Cajon to get a more sensitive test kit for testing for chlorine -- that darn well still shows the stuff -- we can't get the nitrate test until it's clear. Drive to El Cajon. Let's see now, he said to look for two ugly brown buildings, find the one next to the courthouse, okay, now for a parking space. Oops, can't both go in -- we've already got a couple thousand dollars worth of stuff in the back of the pick-up. Better have Forry stay with it. Okay, there's the door; nope, says public around to the other side; find the side door. Said to stop at front desk, sign in, get VISITOR badge, find elevator, go to 6th floor. Man at desk says the man who emailed me and I called and he said he'd be here until four is gone... Other guy shows up, nice guy, says he knows all about it. Shows me pink water from well, says the pool kit they had us buy yesterday isn't sensitive enough. Gives me five tablets, I'm supposed to add one to a water sample to check water every day, and to tell client to leave hoses running. He'll be out to check again on Monday, but tells me to go over to check it first & call him if it's still pink.... Gives me sheet of paper about sterilizing the well, it says to pour 1 QUART of chlorox down well for every hundred feet of casing. Remember seeing two empty GALLON jugs of chlorox by well... Find elevator, go back downstairs, give VISITOR badge back; now where's that parking lot? Oh, yeah, I had to go around to the other side of the building.

Stop to get gas at Costco -- price is up three cents from two days ago.

Go to Lowe's for missing piece of railing for porch at House #3.

Go to El Cajon Home Depot for missing 13 boxes of oak laminate flooring. Forry stays with pick-up in parking lot. Find only ten boxes on display...! Load them on cart. Finally think to ask if they might have any more. Clerk checks computer, says they're supposed to have fifty boxes of oak; was I sure I looked? Other clerk goes to check. Finds more boxes three shelves up near ceiling. Calls another clerk to get a rolling ladder. Climbs up gets one box, brings it down. I tell him I need two more. Asks me if I'm sure, after all the boxes must weigh forty pounds. Tell him yes, I need two more -- forebear telling him I had already loaded ten boxes of the stuff. Check out -- easy, these only go to one client. Get Forry to bring pickup over to loading area, one clerk helps load while another watches.

Forry parks truck a bit away from the loading area and I watch the pickup and wait for him to go in to purchase PVC pipe he needs for another client. Call Sister Sherry, get caught up on her and the dogs. Check my email, reply to accountant about address to send our tax return to us for signature. Sort out my wallet and receipts. Forry comes back with lengths of PVC pipe and elbows. Ties down load. Temp on clock in shopping area says 82 degrees.

Realize it's already five PM. I won't be back at camp to de-brief the crews at 5:15. Call Construction Foreman, he offers to go ahead with meeting, we can confer later.

Pull into the camp at 6 PM just in time for supper. Sure wish I had kept track of the miles...

Monday Once Again...

It's Monday and it's late. We drove in to San Diego International Airport to pick up Jon, one of the long termers, who had left early last Thursday to spend a long weekend at home in Virginia.


We were at the possible House #5 today to check and make sure the well water was free of chlorine so the county could retest the water. Forry had bought a pool water test kit to check for chlorine levels and it showed absolutely none, so hopefully tomorrow's test will be successful. (They did the first test the day after they had poured a gallon of chlorox down to sterilize the well casing. They ran the water for 24 hours, but it evidently wasn't long enough...)

This picture is taken from the hill above the potential house site. You can barely see the orange ribbon outlining the foundation parameters.



I took this picture about halfway up the hill. The homeowner really has a green thumb and has already planted many plants on the hill.




I took this one along the road on the way back to camp. There aren't too many yuccas around this area, but they are beginning to bloom.

The Weekend

It's hard to believe it's already Sunday night and the weekend is already gone. We welcomed a new crew of folks from Oregon this evening. There are only nine of them, so it's a much smaller crew then usual. It rained this morning while we were at church and it's quite chilly this evening --48 degrees -- so I think they were a bit disappointed. We told them the weather was to make them feel like they were at home in rainy Oregon...

These are some of the pictures we took yesterday on our harbor cruise:

The aircraft carrier Midway which is parked just a dock away from the tour boats. She is permanently docked in San Diego and is open for public tours. Some of the guys went over and took a walk around her while they were waiting for us.

Looking back at the skyline of San Diego:

A ship in dry dock:

And one that just came out of the dry dock:


A US Navy hospital ship:


And a ship that is "supposed to be invisible to radar":


Then we watched the carrier Nimitz come back into the bay (they had departed just that morning for some testing?) with all of its sailors standing at attention on the deck. They stood there for over an hour while the ship came in and docked.


All in all, it was a lovely afternoon. We went to Anthony's afterwards for dinner. We had a long wait -- even though we had reservations -- but, it was worth it for a table by the window with a view of the bay.

On the water...

This is a view of one of the sailboat mooring sites along the San Diego Bay from the deck of the Hornblower. All of the long-termers went on the two hour cruise, then out for a seafood dinner.

I am really tired, so will share more pictures tomorrow...

A BIG Day!

It was a very big day, indeed! This is part of the food set up by the local Community Recovery Team at the house by the road at the front of the property where our MDS Camp is located.

These are some of the crowd that gathered for the opening speechs by the dignitaries from the San Diego Foundation that were present. All of the various funding agencies were represented, as well as neighbors, current and prospective homeowners, vendors and the banks. It was gratifying for all involved to see so many different people here. Groups of people then toured the camp facilities, looking through the dorms, the showers, the kitchen, the dining hall and the office trailers. The representative from the San Diego Chargers groups was quite pleased with the camp and the camp layout as they had donated much of the money for it.

Some of the short-termers stayed at camp to help set-up and to park cars. They think they parked over fifty vehicles, most of them with 2-4 people in them. After touring the camp, most of the folks drove on up to House #1 for a tour of the almost finished home.

This afternoon, the short-terms quit work about three PM and returned to camp to wash vehicles. Usually, we have them clean the dorms and showers, but that had already been done in preparation for the Open House. The two shuttle buses are coming to get them at 5:30 AM tomorrow to get them to the airport for their flight back to Poole, Ontario, Canada.

Once again, more miles...

It's amazing how a trip to five stores or vendors can take all afternoon! Forry and I took off before lunch to pick up a few things to keep the crews going and some things I wanted to get before the house dedication next week. We also stopped by the harbor in San Diego to arrange a harbor cruise on Saturday afternoon as an outing for the long-termers. We barely made it back to camp in time for dinner!

I spent an hour on a conference call this morning with the Moderator and Conference Minister of Franklin Mennonite Conference seeking their input on the search for the new director of Mennonite Church USA. It's kind of fun to think about something besides construction details for a little while.

We had the inspection on the sheetrock (wall board) on House #3 this morning so the crew was able to start mudding and taping. The crew at House #2 has all the primer on the walls and has painted a portion of the ceilings.

There was a big group of volunteers -- not ours... -- at House #1 today sprucing up the grounds and weed-whacking in preparation for the Open House tour tomorrow. News about the Open House was in the San Diego paper today, so we may have quite a few people show up. We're not quite sure what to expect, but I expect tomorrow will be a long day!

One of those days...

I spent most of the morning on the phone arranging inspections, making arrangements to change the scaffolding for ones that you can put multiple levels of planks on, following up on all the little details that the project entails -- but at the end of the day I was left wondering what I had done all day.

I did get a good start on the program for the dedication of House #1 next week. I wanted to get a picture of the homeowners in front of the house for the program, but when I was there earlier this week, there was too much construction stuff on and around the front porch. The crews are gathering up equipment and picking up as much as possible for the house tour that will be part of the Open House here at the camp on Friday. I told the homeowners I would take a picture of them then.

The carpet layers were supposed to be there this afternoon, but it turns out that they did NOT have enough in stock for the job (bedrooms and living room) like they said they did when it was ordered. They're saying that they ordered it from Georgia and it will be in tomorrow, but I wouldn't wager it'll be done for the Open House. I guess I'll just be happy if it's in in time for the dedication on the 27th.

This evening Ken and Mabel and Forry and I went to visit the site for House #5. We needed to check and see if they were running the water to flush the chlorine from the lines before the county came to test the water tomorrow. It's a new well and they needed to sanitize all of the lines today. Once the well water passes its test, the permit for construction of this house can be pulled by Robin. It's going to be in the most beautiful site yet -- the view is just fantastic. The homeowner has a green thumb. Her vegetable garden is already growing well and she has planted many trees and flowers.

Our Wednesday on Tuesday

We had our Wednesday night special program tonight instead of tomorrow as this was the only night that Robin could come. Robin is the coordinator for all of the area projects and she spoke about what it takes "behind the scenes" to run a project like this. She did a great job, but I think the long termers probably were more interested than our young short-term crew.

This morning we met with Deena, the county lady in charge of the environmental stuff, and reviewed the first three house properties with her. We've got some wild flower seeding to do at House #2 after we finish smoothing out the slope behind the house, but she was happy with what had been done at the other houses.

Forry and I spent the afternoon on the road, buying interior paint for House #2 (the guys seemed to think there needed to be a "woman's input" on the paint color) and a refrigerator and stove for House #1. Of course, the stores we needed to go to were a long way apart.

I started out the day with a conference call with the Moderator and Conference Pastor for the SE Mennonite Conference in the Florida area. We (the Search Committee) are contacting each of the area conference to gain the thoughts about the job description and the type of person they visualize for the new Executive Director of Mennonite Church USA.

All in all, it's been a busy day with lots of interaction with lots of different people. It's definitely time for bed -- maybe I can even manage to read at least one chapter in the book I've been working on for two weeks...!

Another Monday...

Mondays are always interesting... We always have a new crew of short term volunteers and you never quite know what to expect. And today I had a conference call at 7:15 AM, so had to say grace for breakfast, then leave for Auntie Violet and an hour long phone call. Bless Sue's heart, she stepped up to do the after breakfast devotions.

We had the inspection for the stem walls on House #4 today, but the inspector didn't like the length of the rebar, so we didn't get to pour concrete today. The rebar has been lengthened and it'll get another inspection tomorrow and hopefully we'll get the concrete poured. Forry spent most of the day on the road looking for a concrete vibrator to rent. One place had sent theirs out for repair, another didn't rent stuff, another didn't have one... He probably would have been better off staying a camp and letting his fingers do the driving if he had only known.


I spent most of the morning running errands to the post office, to Staples, and to the grocery store; then had lunch with the head of the Long Term Coordinating Committee. When I got back to camp I went with Ken, the construction foreman, to House #1 to take a picture of last week's crew to Elsie. It's amazing to see the progress on that house since we have been here.


A couple more pictures from Saturday:






This is a picture of the very funky Desert Tower near Old Highway 80 close to the Imperial County line. It was built in the 1930s? and is the place to see all of the rather strange Boulder Creatures. From the top of it you can see quite a panoramic view of the Imperial Valley.

These scarecrow-like figures were seen along some of the railroad and highway underpasses. We were told they were the work of a local eccentric who dressed the branches in clothes discarded by undocumented workers...

San Diego and a Nap!

This morning we dropped our cooks of the last two weeks, Hap and Deb, off at the airport for their flight home to Pennsylvania, then went on to church with two of the other longtermers from Oregon. The top picture is of the building where the Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren hold joint services. The Friends group meets at the same time on the other side of the complex. The picture below of the round building is the one they are building as a Peace Center. Last week they took us on a tour of the inside of this building which is made out of rice straw bales. I didn't get inside this week to take a picture of the bales.

After church we came back to camp for a much needed nap! When I woke up I wrote some postcards to the grandkids and friends, but didn't get much more accomplished. Our new group of short term volunteers arrived by two shuttles buses about 5:30. We let them get settled, then had orientation at 7. This is the first group we've had that has females! That should be a nice change.

Here are some more pictures from yesterday's expedition:

This is the farming with the border fence. They were setting sprinkler pipe in the ditches between the raised beds. I'd sure like to know what they have planted there...

These are some of the whimsical "boulder creatures" at one of the stops we made. The succulent below was blooming nearby.

Ocotillos are in Bloom!

This morning Forry and I left camp and headed east towards the desert. When we had come through Arizona last month, we had seen some ocotillos in bloom in the mountains, but there was no place we could stop to take a close look or get a picture.

We took Highway 94 down towards Protero, then on over to the town of Ocotillo. The red flower shoots on the ends of the plants were all over that area! So I FINALLY got my pictures! But it's funny, we only saw them in the one area.

We came back via Old Highway 80. You almost have to see them to believe the incredible boulders in this area. Highway 80 takes you through the little town of Jacumba which is right along the Mexican border. At times we were less than 500 feet from the fence.
While we were gone from camp, a trucker came by and wanted to use one of our compressors to air up one of his duals. When he drove into camp, he hooked the power line with his trailer, disconnecting it. Ken, who had remained at camp, ended up having to get the electric company out to disconnect the power, but then they do not do anything from the transformer on in. So he had to get regular electricians in to repair the mast on the main building and reconnect the wire, then get the electric company back out to reconnect us! It turned out to be a VERY expensive day!

This evening we took all of the long termers (including our old cooks who are flying back to Pennsylvania in the morning and the new cooks who drove in today from Manitoba) out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in La Mesa. We had to wait almost an hour and 1/2 to be seated -- the food was really good, but it was a
l-o-n-g wait.

Hooray -- It's Friday Once Again!

And it is amazing how tired we all are. Some of the long-termers are talking about what they want to do tomorrow, but not with a lot of energy. The fellows from Ontario left tonight, but the crew from Alberta is not leaving until tomorrow.

Forry took some pictures of the terrain this week:

It was kind of a misty morning, but the fog burned off by 10 o'clock. The top picture is the road into one of the houses -- the better portion of the road!

Today Ken, our construction foreman, and I met with the head of the Long Term Recovery Committee out at House #2 to make a decision about whether or not we needed to get a self starting generator to replace the pull start one. There are some real issues with this house that is not connected to outside electrical power. The main energy will come from the solar panels on the roof, but there needs to be a generator to run the sprinkler system in an emergency -- and to to run the well pump if need be. It's turned out to be a very complex project!