Randall's tidbits

It is time for me to fill in some of the blanks that Ann left out. She and Sister Shaw have worked like teenagers and have been a great help. We have filled up three 30 yard dumpsters and most of that was hauled out by them as Brother Shaw and I tore things out.  

Dumpster

Ann thinks she is the owner of the 48 “ ZTR lawnmower and spends one full day each week mowing the expansive grounds around the three farm houses and out buildings.  Ann got a taste of the respirator work that Kent Erickson and I did while working at the Site. She got to wear a respirator and paint suit while vacuuming out the attic of house #1following the insulation removal. She was ringing wet when she was done but could not pour liquid out of her boots like Kent use to.

expansive grounds, farm houses and out buildings

We have completed most of the demotion on house #1 and are now working on getting things ready for the sheet rockers. I have forgotten how many little things go into building a house, things that I used to think of out of habit. Speaking of habit, the Case backhoe that I used to dig window wells and trenches was backwards to what I was used to. The boom up and down and the arm in and out were backward so when I dug I was always ripping things up. I was explaining this to Dale Huffaker and he told of a switch on Case backhoes that would switch it to what I am used to. I found the switch and the rest of my digging has been less destructive thanks to Dale. I think that the Lord was tired of mistakes and prompted Dale to help me so that when I had to dig next to His houses I wouldn’t poke holes in the foundations.     

We have gone on a couple of excursions on out P days. One was out to the wind farm where we were able to really see just how humongous they really are. The resulting pictures do not do them justice. We also drove out onto the ranch for miles. It has 3000 acres under pivots and 6000 acres of rolling desert land with natural gas wells that do not belong to the ranch. The roads go all over the place and since there are no landmarks it is easy to get lost. 

The windmills go on forever

See the little stairs at the bottom? That's where Ann's standing in the next photo.

Ann standing on the stairs while Randall lays on the ground to get the photo

Still moving and shaking

We have gotten most of the first house torn apart now. We’ve ripped out walls, ceilings, cabinets, bathrooms, windows, and have been digging window wells outside the basement for new larger windows. We had hit a lull in activity because we needed to know cabinet sizes and placement plus bathroom fixtures; like tubes, showers and toilets.

Randall puking in the toilet... Ha Ha, not really, he's removing it.

Sister Shaw taking out a wall. Let me tell you, she is only 5'2" and can bulldoze anything!

Randall digging window wells with the backhoe. He is multi talented, that boy!

We went to town and met Tiffany Andersen at Home Depot (HD). Randall, Tiffany and the HD designer sat down for 8 hours and figured everything out. It was a grueling day for them, but even more so for Lilly, Tiffany’s 4 year old daughter.

Between Sister Shaw and me we wandered around HD picking out what Lilly wanted to have in her house, fixtures, paint etc. we got to know HD really well. When she got bored, she wanted to play dolls. She has a little pink purse; it is loaded with small dolls like Rapunzel, Arial, Mulan, Sleeping Beauty, Pocahontas, and prince charming. She also has my little pet shop animals. We set up house in the plants department. Sister Shaw brought in chairs from the garden department and some decorating crates and we played dolls. Lilly was really quite amazing, she never complained. In fact when her mom was finally finished Lilly wanted to stay and keep playing with us. YES! SCORE! We’re good.

 

Randall putting up a wall. I helped but had to stop to take the picture

So we have started replacing the walls upstairs for bathrooms, bedrooms and closets. I am amazed how Heavenly Father can keep 4 old geezers moving and shaking.

Randall's tidbits

I am going to fill in some of the things that Ann did not talk about. We were fortunate to set up our base of operation close to where the houses we are working on are. We were originally supposed to be in an old trailer court across the road from the feed lot, which would have been very aromatic. As it is we are about three miles away and still get a strong whiff when the wind blows the right direction. Speaking of the wind, there is a wind farm four miles south of us that runs along the east/west road for over ten miles!

Arial view of the Feed Lot

This shows the feed lot from where we are.

 I have to tell you that taking a shower in an RV is an experience that everyone should try. Since there are only 6 gals of hot water, we try to use as little as possible so that we can both shower. With the overhead exhaust fan on it sucks the shower curtain into your body shrinking the already tiny tub causing you to hit your elbows on both sides. I have knocked the hooks off that Ann put on the side of the tub a hundred times.  

 We have been here for over a month working our butts off compared to what we were doing back home and I am still not getting into any better shape. Growing old sucks. These houses were built in the sixties. They used 1xs for all of the sub sheeting and didn’t have a clue what 16” on center means. All the 2xs are 1 5/8” thick instead of our current 1 ½” and 2x10s are 9 ½” wide instead of our barely 9 ¼”. All this makes mixing new lumber in with old a real challenge.

We were tasked with setting up RV hooks ups for the two other couples that are coming in October. We found the septic tank but could not find the stand pipe for it. We got the previous farm manager to come but he could not remember where it was either, but he said he could ‘witch’ it. I cut up a metal hanger into two right angle pieces and he proceed to walk back and forth across the area and found it. I would not have believed if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Then he talked some us into trying it. Danged if it didn’t work. In fact we later ‘witched’ the location of a septic tank

Randall Witching

we could not find for one of the houses that needed to be pumped. I think it works here because there aren’t any rocks in the soil to speak of. I am going to try it back home anyway.

Lesson Learned

So it all started when Randall lost the receipts for everything we had been purchasing for the house redo’s. We had bought hoses, sprinklers, weed whacker, stuff to hook up the washer and dryer (which have been amazing) and some tools. Our church needed those receipts to track everything and make sure we are staying in a budget.

We looked everywhere, vehicles, trailer, “the Lodge”, they were no were to be found. We decided to pray and ask for help. Now let me just say, in the past, every time I have needed help finding something all I've had to do is ask Heavenly Father for help and BAM, there it was. Not so this time. We continued to look and look and look. For over a week we looked. All I could think of was they had been thrown away or blown away (I’m tell’n you Kelly Dombrowski, Antelope Valley and Mackay have nothing on this place were wind is concerned). They were gone.

I was having a conversation with Heavenly Father one day walking to our work site and told him I didn’t understand, he had always helped me in the past, why not now? I answered myself (actually its how he talks back to me is through me) He said, or I said, there’s a lesson to be learned here. Then I got it! We need to be more careful; we are on the Lord’s work and need to treat it that way. We need to pay attention not be casual about our job here.

OK, so I got the lesson, but how to tell Randall he needs to be more careful without offending him. I had the opportunity this past week when he “misplaced” something else. I asked if I could tell him something without him getting upset. He said, “No”, I then proceeded to tell him. I’m bad; I pretty much do what I want. So I told him Heavenly Father had used the receipts as a lesson for us to learn to be more careful about misplacing things. Randall did understand, but said it was easier said than done with his Chemo brain. So we talked about some ways to help solve the problem.

I was still looking for the current misplaced item during this conversation and looked in a drawer both of us had looked in at least 4 times apiece. Guess what I found? Where we had already looked. Where we had already looked a total of at least 8 times! The receipts! Lesson learned. BAM! 

Thank you Heavenly Father...again.