Across the bayou from where we are staying you can see an abandoned house and some of the trees that had tops snapped off by Katrina
Ellen in the door way :) Brittany took out some frustration with a crow bar ( DJ in back)
Me--on the trailer bed.
Monday 12/ 20/ 10 : After breakfast and making lunches, we headed to the Purdy House for our morning rendezvous with Ben and DJ. We then split up into the same 3 groups and headed to work. At Captain John's his son Joel told me that Christmas elves had surely been at work to take that trailer down while he was at work the day before :) He said that it had been really tough living in that little space with his dad for 4 years and that when they moved into the house he had danced around.
Over the years we have learned to be innovative when we don't have materials we need to work with. Today we really needed a wheel barrow but I found the tub from the trailer.
It was light weight and we could fill it with debris from the trailer bed and then carry it to the infamous burn pile.
We celebrated small victories as we struggled to get the metal separated from wood and the roof cut up into pieces. I used my Geometry skills to get all the aluminum/tin evenly placed and flattened in the trailer that will haul it away :)
The ramp crew
got all of the posts in for the last part of the ramp before the turn to the driveway which was quite a feat in the mud where they would level a post and then the ground would move.We went back to the Purdy House to join the others for lunch and then Ben arrived with 60 sheets of sheet rock to be unloaded and taken into the house.
It was really great to see the teamwork as everyone pitched in to get those unloaded and carried into the house--just formed teams of 3 for each sheet--I slid them out from the back of the trailer to them.
Our group came back a little earlier than the others and I was able to make a number of calls including a talk with the home health nurse about hospice care. I will be flying home a couple of days early leaving Bill and Douglas here. My older son John will fly home at the same time to be with me. I know that Mom would not want me to leave early but I feel I need to be there. Each morning when I've talked to her she has been so pleased with all the work we are doing here and she asks what each of us is doing so for those few moments I know she's with us.
Tonight after dinner we did our daily sharing and the talk turned more emotional than usual as we talked about how much we have grown, received, connected--with each other and this town during these trips and how sad it is that this will be our last group trip here. Bill talked about the stories you hear about angels among us and the ones that we have met here--especially Ben, Tom, and DJ who have given so much of their time and energy to the people of this town and who have helped us to accomplish so much in our time here.
There is an eclipse tonight that I'd like to see but don't think I can get up to see it. Tomorrow is our annual trip to Waffle House for breakfast--a Douglas institution. We will also take our annual picture at the Pearlington sign so that I can be part of it. Night!
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