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!

Fire Extinquishers and House Progress

A big package came yesterday from Mac, the Fire Guy, with the big fire extinquisher for Auntie Violet's engine compartment. She is very glad it got here (we'd ordered it while we were at the Gypsy Journal Rally in Arizona) as she'd heard Mac say that over 90% of all fires in motorhomes started in the engine compartment. Now she'll fuss until Forry gets it bolted in.

And speaking of fires, this is what is left of two fairly new vehicles at House #2 after the wildfire went through:

There's been quite a bit of progress on all of the houses. We were at both #1 and #2 today. In the first house, the fellows were putting down the kitchen floor:

At House #2, the solar guys were up on the roof putting on the solar panels:

This is the house that is going to be "off the grid."And this is a picture of the inside that has been mudded and sanded:

At House #3, the inspector was out today and passed on the electric and plumbing and studs, so the fellows were able to start insulating the walls and getting ready to drywall there.

At House #4, the forms for the stem wall are in place. We hope to get it inspected tomorrow so that we can get the concrete trucks back to pour the stem wall.

Forry was again late for supper for the second night in a row as he kept making runs into various places in San Diego to keep enough supplies to keep ahead of the work crews. It's a good thing the cooks keep a plate warm for him!

Frost This Morning!

It was COLD this morning -- we actually had frost on the deck! Our Canadian short-termers finally even put on sweat shirts. They've been in their shirt sleeves ever since they came -- saying it was "balmy" here even though it's been in the fifties. I guess compared to the -20 Celsius in Ontario, it must seem warm.



Above is a picture of the Bobcat that came from Louisiana this weekend. We've already put it to use at one of the sites and will use it again tomorrow. We're fortunate that one of our Canadians has one just like it -- maybe a little smaller. He's done a nice job of evening out the site.

I think I made the day for a couple of the guys. They went into the shopping area at Jamocha Junction (about thirty minutes from camp) last evening after dinner looking for Carhartt work clothes and work boots and didn't find anyplace that carried them. Evidently they are EXTREMELY expensive in Canada -- a pair of overalls is almost $300! I went online this afternoon and found a whole bunch of stores within a 30 mile radius that carry the brand. I know where they will be going after dinner tomorrow night.

Wednesday night after dinner is always a special night with either visitors or special worship. Tonight our visitors from the Akron MDS office shared with us about the work they do placing both long and short term volunteers. So far this year, they've placed over 4000 volunteers at 14 MDS sites -- and had to turn away more than 400 others!

More miles...

We had visitors from Akron, Pennsylvania here this morning. Sarah and Cathie do all of the scheduling for our short term volunteers. They are here for a couple of days to check out the camp and to start making arrangement for the youth groups who will be coming this summer. They drove out to two of the houses this morning -- and only got lost a little bit.

We have been using some borrowed scaffolding that is not a commercial grade, nor does it have safety rails. We checked with headquarters and got permission to buy some heavier duty commercial grade scaffolding. I called a dealer in San Diego and he promised to bring three sets out to one of the job sites (House #3) this afternoon if I could meet him there with a check.

I took the ladies from Akron with me -- but forgot my camera! House #3 has come a long way during the past week. The fellows had a coat of primer on the outside and the first coat of paint as well. It really looks nice! While we were waiting for the scaffold guy (who got a whole lot lost!), the crew took down the old scaffolding and loaded it onto the pick-up I was driving.

After we finished there, we drove on to House #4 where the cement truck was just getting washed out. The trenches passed inspection this morning and the cement trucks came right after lunch to pour the footings. The trucks backed up the last hill with their loads, but actually had no real problems with the road. Tomorrow the crew will put in the forms for the stem wall -- with luck we may get that inspected by Thursday and get those walls poured too.

The cooks had marinated barbecued steak, oven baked potato wedges, green beans and salad for dinner tonight followed by warm apple crisp and ice cream. They certainly are not making it easy to lose any weight!

Miles to go...

Today was a driving day! I had a meeting scheduled for noon with the chair of the local committee and the lady who heads up the Salvation Army social work at a restaurant about a half hour from the camp. At the last minute, Forrest decided to go along as he also had a list of things to pick up. So we were late, but then so were the other two! Robin had good news for us -- we now have sales tax exempt status in California!

From there we went to the bank to make a cash withdrawal for the camp. One of the bank honchos offered to wait on us as the two ladies who usually take care of us were both gone today. It took almost three times as long as usual! Part of the problem was that they don't keep that much cash out, so he had to go into the vault... It's interesting that the bank has a uniformed officer on guard outside. He usually greets us as we come in, then you can see him through the windows pacing around and around the bank outside. The banker told us today that he was mostly there as a deterrent -- but that "you never know."

Next was an expedition to yet another San Diego suburb to pick up some special foundation vents that the inspector has insisted that we install in all the houses. Only one company carries them -- and they had had to order them in.

From there we went to Staples to pick up clipboards, envelopes and file folders for the office. By the time we had run all of these errands, we barely made it back to camp in time for our debriefing before dinner. It looks like we have another really good groups of short-termers this week. They got a lot accomplished today! If House #4 passes the footer inspection tomorrow morning, we should be pouring concrete by noon.

We Start Another Week

I wish I had taken my camera along this morning! Eight of the long termers (the others went to the Jamul Community Church) went in to San Diego to worship with the San Diego Mennonite Church. It's a small congregation that is in a covenant relationship with the Church of the Brethren. A Quaker group also meets in another part of the facility. They are building a very interesting "green" building next door that will be a worship center in the round and also house a Peace Center. I'd like to have taken some pictures of the rice straw bales that the building is being constructed of.

After church -- and a tour of the new facility -- we went to lunch at TGIF, then came back to camp for badly needed naps. Forry woke me up a little after three to tell me that the skid-steer had arrived! We now have another badly needed pickup plus the trailer that the Bobcat was on. The driver brought it out from Louisiana and tomorrow will pick up another vehicle to drive back to Washington DC! (He works for a commercial vehicle moving company and after doing this moving job for MDS, checked to see if his company had another transport for him -- he was hoping for one that would take him home to Denver, but looks like he is heading back east again.)

It's already pretty late. Our last crew of short termers didn't arrive until after 8 PM, so we had a late orientation. We have two groups this week, one from Ontario and the other from Alberta.

Auntie Violet

Tonight Auntie Violet is happy. She had been getting progressively more and more unhappy as her back jacks sunk deeper and deeper into the wet ground. She's made it plain she doesn't like to have her rear sagging! Yesterday she sent my desk chair on rollers scooting clear back to the bedroom when I got up...

Today Forry and Norm, one of the long-termers, moved her a few feet forward and put some planks down across where her jacks needed to be. After she backed up and put her jacks down, you could tell she was much more pleased with her situation. At least tonight we won't be sleeping with our heads lower than our feet.

These are the pictures I promised you yesterday of the fellows loading up all of their luggage that did not fit in the two vans with them!

The next picture is of the spread the cooks put on for lunch on Friday -- there are pulled pork sandwiches, potato salad, pickled eggs, chips, etc. They set the tables up out on the deck to eat. It was nice -- as long as the sun didn't go behind a cloud! We have been fortunate with our cooks, Hap, Deb and Phyllis. This morning we woke up to hot blueberry muffins. We are being well spoiled.

After spending time taking care of Auntie Violet, Forry headed into San Diego to take the rented van back to Enterprise. I followed him in the white Chevy pick-up, trying out the new GPS unit. On the way back, we made a stop at Costco and picked up a small refrigerator for the dining hall that can hold the lunchmeats and cheese for packing lunchs in the morning as well as all of the salad dressings and condiments that the cooks have been carrying back and forth from the kitchen for every meal.

On the way back to camp, of course we now had both GPS units. We left them both on and split laughing at the two sometimes divergent and sometimes stereo directions. I guess it doesn't take much to amuse some people...

It's Friday

I am so very glad it's Friday! We said good-bye to a wonderful group of young men -- and I may have thoroughly embarassed some of them by giving them a hug instead of a handshake. (I've a great picture of the MOUND of luggage they had that I'll share tomorrow.) We ARE going to miss them, but we'll have a whole new group to meet on Sunday night.

Tonight all of the long-termers went out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory in Chula Vista. I've never been to one before -- the food was great and the company was even better.

I'm off to bed -- I'm TIRED!

Another BUSY Day!

Today was busy! We started out this morning intending to make a quick trip down to Jamul to pick up the brown pickup which was at the auto shop getting a new used transmission put in. I was going to go with Forry and drive it back to camp. We've missed having this pickup as we are short of vehicles and I have been the one without!

No trip around here is ever possible for just one thing, it's far enough to any town to need to make the most of any trip. So before we left, we had a shopping list, mainly things for the office and paint for the exterior of #3 house. Didn't sound too bad.

We ended up going to Santee as there was both a WalMart and a Home Depot there. One of the things on the list was a GPS unit for the camp (me) since all of the drivers were using their personal ones (Forry's been using ours...).

Wouldn't you know, the GPS units are in a locked cabinet, only one employee has the key, and he was NOWHERE to be found -- but they paged him. Okay, go get the extra keys made for the office, come back, still no clerk, but they went to the break room to look for him. Okay, go get the ink and the photo paper, come back, still no clerk. Okay go find the cash bags the office wanted, go back, no clerk. Wait. They say they're looking for him. Wait. Ask if there isn't a manager or supervisor who would have keys. No. Wait. Try to decide if haven't already invested so much time that it doesn't pay to walk out. Clerk finally shows. No apology. Wants to know what we want. Tell him we want to buy GPS. Ask him what the difference are between three models that are all within a dollar or two of each other. Clerk shrugs, finally says that it says on the label they all announce streets... With so much information overload we decide to get another Garmin as that's what we've already got. Clerk finally deigns to open case. Rummages around bottom of display case, no Garmin on that side. Grunts, moves over to other side, finally pulls one out. Hands it over without making eye contact, locks case, walks off. Great customer service...

Go to Home Depot. Give paint colors to clerk, tell her how many gallons we need. 6 gallons of primer, 10 gallons of base, 2 gallons of trim paint. Clerk comments on neat colors (would you believe base is called applesauce cake and trim color is peanut butter?). Smiles, grabs ladder, gets paint -- laughingly comments that the one you want is always up the highest and in the back. Swings five gallon buckets up to machine to add color, mix and shake. Loads paint on cart, asks if we're sure we've got everything we need. Go to Contractor Counter to check out, clerk gives us 10% discount when asked, notices we didn't get paint stirrer sticks, checks to see if we need help loading. Great customer service!

Get back to Jamul, get pickup and pay for new transmission --OUCH! Get phone call that one of the short termers has fallen off the bottom two steps of ladder, hitting his head. Get back to camp, Forry takes volunteer to hospital emergency room. Five hours later -- and after dinner time -- the two return to camp. A set of x-rays, a CAT scan, multiple staples for the cut and a head bandage to show for their long wait. The hospital puts the digital x-rays and scan on a disk for volunteer to take to his home doctor in Pennsylvania.

In the meantime back on the job sites the kitchen cabinets for House #1 are delivered, we pass inspection on wall board in House #3, and the foundation for House #4 is dug. Indeed a very busy day!