Im Dreaming of a White Christmas?

It seems very weird to hear that song on the radio. In fact, it sounds weird to hear any Christmas song on the radio. With a forecast of 27 degrees celsius for Sunday, it doesnt seem like December starts tomorrow. It is also quite funny to see the decorations that some people put up on their lawns. I would like to get a picture of some of the yards, with the big inflatable snow globes. Especially as snow is so rare down here. It will be quite a change to go back home in under a week to the snow and freezing temperatures. I may be cold.

Mrs. Baptiste

Work on Mrs. Baptiste's house was delayed for a few weeks. She did not have proof of ownership of the house, as her house was passed down through the generations, without legal record. Without the legal proof of ownership, no permits would be granted. And permits are needed in order to do the electrical and plumbing. But, the permits must have been granted, as the plumber and electrician are hard at work. Now, new siding is being put on, new soffit and facia has already been installed. The house is coming along nicely, but there is still a lot of work to be done on it.

Crew #4

Crew #4
OSM - Dirk and Elly Evans
Construction Supervisor - Bill and Corrie Kuyvenhoven
Renze and May DeGroot
Sam and Sharon DeGroot
Jim and Marcia VandenBrink
Aubrey and Margaret Gaines
Dirk and Margaret VanOord
Edgar and Joane Wierstra
John Hoftyzer

Nottoway Plantation

On Sunday afternoon we went as a group on a plantation tour. We traveled about 2 and a half hours, west of Baton Rouge, searching for plantations. We had one in mind, we just didnt know how far away it was. And of course, I forgot my camera. Oh well. We went to Nottoway Plantation. The house is 53,000 square feet. Huge. We went on a guided tour, taken around by a lady in the period dress. The house was completed in 1859. It took quite a few years to build it. There is more information and pictures at www.nottoway.com . I wish I had some pictures of my own. We didnt get home til about 7:30 on Sunday night. It was an enjoyable afternoon.

Hello Again

This is Marselite Dorsey's house. I spent a few days doing various things on this house. Leveling the floor, replacing some flooring, doing some siding, gutting the living room and cutting holes in the drywall.

This is a ramp and a new set of stairs that I helped build at the "House of Prayer". That house underwent quite a transition. Now it is painted and new floor is being put down. The new siding looks real sharp.

This is the kitchen and living room of the "House of Prayer". After Bill and I drywalled it. Made the tiny little house seem a little bigger.
This is the exterior of the same house. Quite a change.

The Last Little While

Well, quite a bit has happened since I have last posted. I dont know if I will be able to remember it all. Bill Smit and I spent the last week insulating and drywalling the house of Miss Wilson. We never did get to meet her. She dropped by one morning, but we didnt get to talk to her. The drywall turned out alright. Some walls were a little out of square, so we would have to cut a sheet a few times in order to get it to fit properly. Now that house is all taped and has the second coat of mud on, and it doesnt look too bad. The whole exterior got new white siding, which looks good. And the past few days, I have been working with an experienced carpenteer from Washington, constructing a wheelchair ramp for the house. We started on the back door and wrapped around one side. It turned out quite nice. Pictures will come. I did quite a bit of the digging for the ramp. Tom laid things out and I put it together, more or less.
Earlier this week Bill and I moved to another house in town. It was the first one that we did in town. The rest have been a few miles out of town. This house is quite large in comparison to all the other ones we have worked on, probably more than double the square footage. The house is in a middle class neighbourhood, with nice looking houses. The client, Ms Mistretta is a very warm and welcoming lady. The first afternoon Bill and I were there, she worked behind us all day, sweeping up our mess. She did the same the next afternoon as well. On Wednesday, when I got switched to another crew, she was concerned and asked Bill where I was and how I was doing.
Well, I have done one airport run this morning and one more this afternoon. The new crew comes in and we start the last 3 week session before the Christmas break.

My Humble Accomodations

For this session and the next I get a trailer to myself. We are renting a building from a local church and the RV's are parked in the backyard of the church. There is a cement walkway from the building to the RV's. I can get kinda chilly at night, especially because my heater doesnt work.

Crew #3

OSM - Harold and Marlyce Mulder

CS - Ceus and Nellie Westerhof

Hans and Laura Snippe

Paul and Carolyn Viss
John and Joane Orange

Harold Stremler

Tom Bracewell

Tom Posthumus

Bill Smit

Gertie Kwant

Katie Hilker

"The House of Prayer"

The house which I am currently working on has the words "House of Prayer" painted on the side. It needs a lot more than prayer. I has already been raised and leveled, gutted, new roof and now we are putting new siding on as well as redoing the inside. Bill and I have insulated it and are now hanging drywall. There are three older guys trying to get the siding done on the outside. They do a lot of discussing and looking for lost tools. They are starting to get a rythym now though.

Tomorrow Bill and I will finish drywalling the ceilings and we will start on the walls. I have a feeling we may have to tape and mud it too, as we dont really have anyone on the crew who specializes on it.

On Sunday I went to an African Methodist Episcopal Church with Bill, Tom P, Gertie and Katie. We were in there for about 3 hours, but it didnt feel that long. We were very welcomed and felt very loved. I have found that the South is generally very friendly and are proud of their hospitality.

Sites From Mrs. Baptiste's Roof

Well, I am done roofing now. We finished up today before lunch. We started to put 1/2 inch plywood on all the floors in the house. To level things up a little. We got about 1/3 done that today. Lots of cutting to do. The plumbing and electrical should get done within the next little while. But there is no building permit, so we cant do the sheetrock until it gets inspected. The jobs we are doing are bigger undertakings than the jobs in Laurel. I am not sure why, but I think there may be more money down here. The budget for the jobs are in the area of 10,000 to 13,000 dollars.

As you can see, there is a lot of work to be done on this house yet.

Slidell

These are some pictures I took on my journey to Slidell. It is about 100 miles south of Laurel, in Louisiana. There is one field along the Interstate with hundreds of FEMA trailers sitting there. They are generally a dump after they have been used and often just get burnt. I am not sure what is going to happen to these ones.
I have a small trailer to myself for the next 6 weeks. With my own bathrom and all. It would be tight for a couple, but it works well for me. We started work today. I was roofing with two older men. We are over half done, should finish it up tomorrow. The house we are working on has pretty well been redone. More than half of the studding was replaced. Pretty well they only original parts are the floor, which was leveled and braced and the rafters. We have to wait for the plumbing and electrical before we can do much else on it.

Group #2

On Site Managers: Ken and Annette Gebben
Consruction Supervisor: Martin VanderMeulen
Mike Tigchelaar
Marv Sjaardema
Stuart and Jannie Grendel
Gene VanStedum
Gerry and Lannie Dykstra
Ted and Judy Koning
Bill and Trudy Hofland

The Excited Monkey

Pictures from the Zoo

A relaxing monkey. The pelicans.
A monkey trying to get a bean pod I dropped outside its cage.
Luther's favourite rodent.

A small gorilla looking animal perching on top of a palm tree. I didnt not think it was real until it changed positions and went back to sleep.
A big, friendly jaguar.

The Hattiesburg Zoo

On Saturday, seven of us went to check out Hattiesburg. There is not a whole lot to do there, but with the Zoo and the historic downtown, we thought we could make a day of it.
The Zoo cost $2, which someone paid for me. It was a decent Zoo for the size of the town. There were various monkeys, birds, tigers, jaguars, emus, zebras and a few other animals. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm. This meant that most of the animals were relaxing in the shade, trying to conserve their energy. We were able to coax a few animals up from their sleep with our whistling.
After we had finished at the Zoo, we went to check out the historic downtown. Well, there may have been something going on there in history, but not that afternoon. We drove around it a while and then went for a late lunch instead.

The Week

Well, Marv and I finished up at Grahams on Wednesday. It was sad to leave them. But they were very happy with the way everything turned out. The bathroom turned out quite nice. It would have been easier for us to tear all the old panelling out, but they wanted to keep it. So we had to patch some things together with old panelling from the warehouse. They didnt mind though.
On Thursday morning, Marv and I went with the Grendels, from Brockville, to another site. They had already torn out the ceiling in the master bedroom and were just about down re-tiling it. Marv and I were to tear out the laundry room floor, as it had obviously been water damaged, replace some joists and put down a new floor. I wasnt feeling very well on Thursday morning, so I wasnt much help. I ended up going to the clinic and finding out why my face was swollen. I was given some antibiotics and the swelling is going down. The drugs seem to sap my energy though. Friday I went back to work. We got all the subfloor down and drywalled the ceiling in the laundry room as well as the hall. Tomorrow we will be mudding, putting down the underlay for the linoleum and a few other things.

Some Pictures

The Graham's place. Billy Graham helping out Marv.
The finished shower stall.
The new vanity.

Tourist in New Orleans

On Saturday we went as a group to New Orleans. This time we did the touristy things. We drove down to the French Quarter and spent the day there. We got beignets at the Cafe du Monde, apparently world famous. They were quite good. Reminded me of ole boilen. I walked around in the morning with four other men, who didnt have their wives with them. We took a mule carriage ride around the French Quarter. It was not hit hard by Katrina. Which is a good thing, because a lot of the buildings are 150-200 years old. The French Quarter is a national historic site, so the faces of the buildings cannot be changed, just restored, and permits must be granted before any work is done on the buildings, interior or exterior.

In the afternoon I walked around with Mike. We sat in some parks, had a snack at a coffee shop and walked up and down the streets. After a while, it all seems the same. There are lots of similar shops with souvenirs and clothes.

The Cornstalk Inn

The reason they call it the Cornstalk Inn.

The view down a street.

Plants on a street corner.

My lunch, gator kebob.

The Past Week

Well, I have now worked with the new crew for one week. We have been able to get quite a bit accomplished. This new group is fun, despite the fact that everyone could be my grandma or my grandpa. They stay up longer at night than the last group did though. We have fun, even without a Karl. And I am still getting teased quite a bit.
On Monday I headed out to a job with Marv Sjaardema, Ted Koning, Gene VanStedum and Jannie Grendel. This house had a variety of repairs that needed to be done. The main thing was tearing out the bathroom floor and replacing the tub with a shower. This bathroom hadnt been in use since Katrina as the floor had rotted. We also had to replace some floor in the laundry room, put down new linoleum, put new carpet in her bedroom, replace the flooring in the hall and put new linoleum in the other bathroom.
The couple that we are working for are really great. They are encouraging and love to see the progress and to talk. Mrs. Graham has quite a story to tell and loves to share it. They are fairly young and have been married for 48 years. They both care for each other so much.
When we started to tear up the bathroom, we knew we were in for a surpise. Me and Marv tackled that job. We got the old tub out, got the floor ripped out and then started the task of trying to level the floor. We spent about two days under the floor of the house with bottle jacks, trying to get the bathroom relatively "level". It is impossible. Some joists were rotten, some were cracked. We got the bathroom floor to the point where we could put the new plywood on the joist on one side and up on a strip of old half inch plywood on the other side. And that made it almost level. There are still parts of the floor that have visible slopes, but we did the best we could. It was quite smelly under the house as the sink drain had been disconnected from the main drain pipe for who knows how long.
So now we have the linoleum down, the shower surround ready to be glued in, the new vanity installed and almost ready for the baseboard. We should be just about done by Tuesday. It will be very sad to say goodbye to the Grahams, but they took all our addresses and we got theirs. They are the kind of couple that you would go back to visit if you were in the area again.

Some Pictures from the Session

The dedication wreath at Newsome`s house, during the Last Nail Ceremony Anthony Newsome
The front of the Newsome`s house, all nicely repainted
The side of the Newsome`s house
The finish back porch at McCormicks
The cat I befriended at Newsome`s

El Guapo, the big alligator on the swamp tour
McCormicks
The 3 Canucks and Miss Thomas
A sign in New Orleans

Our house
Newsome`s house
The original crew and Miss Newsome
Me mudding