An Adventure every moment! Also, my cousins may be crazy.

I have lots of news since Wednesday, and hardly a moment to share it here! I did end up working in masonry for my cousins Nathan and Isaac on Thursday and then Friday as well. On Wednesday night, Paul worried me by saying, "Oh you'll have lots of fun tomorrow," while wearing a grin that said, "You will be tortured." When we arrived to the job site, the cousins' employee Lije got out of the car and said, "Uuuuuuuugh, today is gonna suck..." The first half of the day was not so bad; every once in a while I would shovel a bucket half-full of cement and then deliver it to the masons as they added mortar between cement blocks. I also did a bit of smoothing the mortar joints as the progressed. Pretty mellow. Then when the concrete truck arrived midday, Issac, the soft-spoken one turned to me and said, "Welcome to my nightmare," and then he laughed a little. The rest of the job consisted of shoveling concrete from a wheelbarrow into buckets which were then lifted from the ground to the top of the 8+ foot wall, and then poured down into the spaces in the walls over and over and over. And over. My job was to shovel the concrete into buckets at first. After a few minutes, Nathan asked me if I'd like him to take over bucket filling to rest my arms. I replied, "Um, I think I'll hold out for about another five minutes." What Nathan heard me say was, "I would love to do this exact same task for the rest of the day. Please let me shovel concrete forever." So after about seventeen thousand shovels-full, my arms went numb, then my brain went numb, then I left my body and had a nice little day dream about swimming in the cool lake that I knew was 100 yards away, though blocked from my vision, most literally, pun intended. Then an extra-salty drop of sweat ran into my eyeball and the searing pain brought me back to hell I mean reality. Just kidding, it was actually pretty fun, if you can believe that. My body held up better than expected, but I did have a little daydream about a swim. The wall we were building was for the basement under an old house that had been jacked up. I am planning to have my basement built in a very similar fashion, so it was really exciting to see the process and know a bit about how mine would be done. And my cousins have agreed to help me with my house, so it felt particularly good to help them out too.

I was really feeling fine till we had to clean up a lot of heavy equipment at the end of the day. By then my body was fatigued and it was hard to carry stuff and not fall over. But we got it done, and then I fell asleep sitting in an upright position. That was funny. Did I mention that we left the house for work at six (AM) and returned home at 9:15 (PM)??? That's enough to tell you my cousins are a little nuts. But just in case that doesn't convince you, then they borrowed a trailer and brought in bales of hay with their dad till 11:30 at night. And we aren't talking the nice big ones you need a tractor to lift, they were stacking and hauling the lovely little square bales you get to pick up with your hands (they ain't light)!

Thank goodness it rained this morning so we were forced to sleep in. The rain was so soothing, thunder claps and all, that I just hunkered in for an extra hour. At ten it had cleared so we headed down to Pine River-Backus school to work on building dugouts for their new baseball fields. That was really exciting because that's where I always struck out, I mean "played baseball" in 10th grade. The work was relatively easy compared to the previous day. Sand was moved with a Bobcat, and I didn't have to shovel for more than an hour total the whole day.

While I worked away the hours the last couple days, I worried that the excavator might not progress on my lot without me present and pressing. I had told him I planned to be gone to help out with the masonry so I thought he might not work during that time. Boy was I wrong!! I never heard from the excavator, so I had my cousin Joel go take a look for me. His report: "Your driveway is in with gravel on it and the whole lot is cleared with all the tree stumps pulled out. It kind of looks a bit like a mud pit."

I couldn't believe it, while I was gone, Randy (the excavator extraordinaire) was secretly doing tons of work in a really short time! When I heard that, I felt like I'd been given bonus days in life where I could accomplish two things simultaneously in separate locations. Maybe if I go to work full time as a mason's helper my house will build itself! Pictures of my developing lot will show up here shortly.

Last to report, I have found some incredible deals lately and I'm so excited about it! SO excited. Today I bought enough shingles to probably cover my entire roof for $125. Tomorrow morning I have an appointment to purchase a used kitchen stove, exactly the kind I was looking for, in good working condition for $25!!! Plus, Melanie tells me by purchasing used goods and salvaging materials, I'm saving the planet. I was being so environmentally conscious, and I didn't even know it... For my wood stove, my cook-stove/oven combo for the kitchen, and all my shingles, I've spent a grand total of $300. That makes me happy.



Isaac is like, "Here, let me build this wall much taller so passing buckets of cement doesn't get too easy." Or maybe he was thinking, "This hurts me more than it hurts you..."



Digging the dugout...



You've always wondered, and now you know what a concrete form looks like.





Soon, the little Jon Wheelers of the future will have this place to sit after they strike out. If you just went, "awwww," inside, don't worry, I loved it. To me the next best thing to playin' and winnin' is playin' and loosin' :-)

P.S. I decided not to buy that gray house below. It was a one story, manufactured home with 2x4 (as opposed to 2x6) frame walls. Once again, I'm resolved to build my own!