Monday Fun-day

 Oh Monday, you never cease to amaze me with the things you throw at me.



Who wouldn't be jealous of these shirts?



While we were waiting for Tony this morning to come back from running errands, Kate and I decided to head down to the main office and check out the Miracle Bin. The Miracle Bin to explain for non-CAP people is two large cardboard boxes that are full of donated clothes & other random assorted objects. Anything in the box is up for grabs for CAP volunteers and employees and we occasionally go through the box to see if there is anything we as poor volunteers could utilize. Most of the stuff in the boxes is completely hideous and out of style, but every once in a while you find a miracle - like the American Eagle and JCrew shorts I found last week in my size. However, today was more of the former versus the latter for treasure finds. To pass the time, Kate and I decided to try on some of the more awful attire and each of us picked out a shirt to wear for the first half of our day.

In typical Monday fashion, we also got a flat tire today on Tony's trailer which means that I got to showcase my tire-changing skills once again. So while Kate and Tony took photos, I successfully changed my second tire. Really the pictures say it all...

Disbelief





Anger/Frustration



Doing Work



Part of the tree - over 40in across



After I got the tire changed, we got back on the road and continued our journey to Wheelwright, KY to look at another disaster relief job. At this home, a tree had fallen onto the roof and went through their ceiling. The damage is unbelievable, but from the size of the tree that fell it is not surprising. After looking at the extent of the work needed, our manager decided that the job would take too long so it is going to be referred to another program in CAP which means we get to (finally) go back to our WorkFest job. And I couldn't be more excited.

Overall, not to shabby for a Monday.

The Two Hardest Workin' Women This Side of the Mississippi

Today, Kate and I had our second encounter with Charlie the Mountain Man from Teaberry, KY and it was just as, if not more, exciting as our first meeting.


Charlie was waiting for us at his mother's home when we pulled up to work this past Wednesday. He greeted us by calling us the 'two hardest workin' women this side of the Mississippi' and bragging on us to his friend about how we carried all the shingles up the ladder and onto the roof. He then proceeded to ask us if we wanted to see his horse which he had brought down from his place and was keeping at his mom's. So we took off around the house to meet Charlie's horse which he had tied up under the apple tree.

The meeting/conversation went something like this:


Me: Can I pet her or will she bite me?
Charlie: No, she won't bite you. She's a good horse. Won't kick you. If she does, I'll kill her.
Me and Kate: Oh ok.


Charlie Proving His Point



At this point, Charlie motions us closer and asks me to hold some of his things so he can prove his point about the gentleness of his horse. He then proceeded to grab the tail of the horse and pull on it with is entire body weight saying "See? It won't kick you. Surely won't. Look here!" The horse couldn't have cared less and just continued to graze.

Me: Um, yeah I guess you're right. Does she have a name?

Charlie: I call her Murry.

Me: Mary?

Charlie: Yup, Murry. But that's just what I call her, y'all can call her whatever you like. Well, that's her. She's a real good horse. Won't hurt ya'. I'll see y'all later. I'm going mushroom hunting.

And with that and a few more parting words, Charlie took off with his friend to go up in the mountains and look for mushrooms. He brings all sorts of greens and mushrooms home to his mother that grow on the mountains here and are good for eating. Augustina even gave some of the greens, called Tangle Gut, to Tony for him to take home and try.

Unfortunately, we finished the roof at Augustina's house yesterday so we probably won't be seeing Charlie again. Unless by some good fortune, he happens to be around when we bring back her new windows. So far, I've met a pet coon and got to meet the most long-suffering horse in the universe, I can only imagine what else Charlie has up his sleeve.

I have my fingers crossed.

Mary & I

All the Shingle Ladies

When you look at a roof, perhaps your own or a neighbor's home, do you ever think of how all those shingles got up on that roof?

If you are a normal person, then you probably have never considered the logistics of how the shingles make their long journey from the ground to the roof. In fact, I had never given it serious thought until this past week. We were sent back out to the disaster relief job we looked at last week to put on a new roof and even knowing that I still missed that whole part of the process. I was more focused on the actual putting on of the new shingles and hadn't given any thought to the shingles inevitable need to be moved to higher ground.

Monday morning I quickly learned a few things:


    1. Shingles are heavy.
    2. Shingles get on the roof by you carrying them there.
    3. Shingles are really heavy.

Our Lunch Break
(Please note the pile of shingles pre-move-to-the-roof)

For those of you who have never had the opportunity to shingle a roof, allow me to elaborate. Each shingle consists of three connected tabs or what looks like individual 'shingles' from the ground. They are about three feet long and a foot wide. Shingles come packaged in stacks of 26 shingles wrapped in plastic called bundles. Each bundle weighs 90 pounds and we had 78 of these. All of which needed to make their way up to the roof.

As far as I can tell from the past week, the best way to carry a bundle of shingles is to stand it up on its side on edge, manage to beast it up onto my right shoulder, let it lean slightly against the side of my head, and then begin the slow ascent to the top of the ladder where Kate would be waiting to take it from me. Walk back down the ladder. Let Tony take his turn. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Until all the bundles have made their ascent. Not to toot our own horns, but we managed to unload both loads of bundles at the pace of one per minute which I must say is nothing to be ashamed of.

The one thing we have had to learn to be careful about with this job is the wind that comes down through the holler. On Monday, it was just strong enough to knock over our ladder leaving all three of us stranded on the roof. Tony tried to figure out a way to get the ladder  from our position on the roof, but that plan was quickly discarded. Tony had no choice but to pull out his cell phone and call inside the house to alert Augustine, our elderly participant, about our situation. The beginning of their conversation went as follows:

Augustine - 'Hello?'
Tony - 'Hello this is Tony'
Augustine - 'No, it isn't. Tony is up on the roof.'
Tony - *Hangs head in shame* 'Um, yeah, that's me.'


Tony explained our situation and together they tried to think of some sort of solution. Unfortunately, Augustine would not be able stand back up the extension ladder on her own so we were really in quite a pickle. However, we somehow managed to time this event so that it coincided with trash pick up and Augustine was able to flag him down and get him to come help us out. Immediately upon recovering our ladder, Tony tied it securely to the roof to avoid any future problems which it did for the remained of the week.

The Shingle Ladies

Its unfortunate that shingles are such a pain in the derriere to move because I think I could otherwise find nothing wrong with spending my days on a roof. Since we are just going over the old shingles, laying down the new ones is a rather easy task and once you get into the swing of things it becomes a repetitive slightly thoughtless task. Line up the new shingle with the old one above it, bump it up against the tab of the one below it, and nail it down. Then on to the next one. Being up on the roof in the sun and 70 degree weather we've been having can get a bit toasty at times, but I don't think I've ever been this tan, even if it just a farmer's tan, in April before so I can't complain. 

 

Girls, I Got Somethin' to Show Ya

After living here in Kentucky for eight months, I thought I had seen just about all of the craziest, off the wall things possible. Alas, once again I was proven wrong.

Today I met a mountain man named Charlie and his pet coon.

Charlie's Destroyed Home

Charlie is the adult son of a woman whose home was referred to Housing by the Disaster Relief Program at CAP. My crew and I were sent out to assess the job which was in Teaberry, KY about an hour and twenty minutes from the office. We were going to assess the damage caused by a tornado that touched down in the area during the bad storms we had this weekend and then write up a cost estimate for repairs. The home was one of three trailers that we had been informed of that suffered damage. It had two broken windows and some damage to the roof - mainly shingles and a vent being torn off by the wind. From our view on the roof of the house, we had a perfect view of the lot behind the home where a trailer, or really what was left of one, and its contents had been strewn all over.The trailer which used to belong to Charlie had been turned completely over and landed upside down in the yard completely flattened. Thankfully, Charlie had been out when the tragedy occurred. Its roof had flown over the neighboring house and into a telephone pole across the street. We could clearly see the path the tornado had taken as the next trailer had suffered no damage whatsoever, but there was a distinct line through the hillside where full grown trees had been snapped in half like toothpicks.

Charlie, who is now staying with his mother, came over to us and informed us that he 'had something to show to us girls that we had never seen before and might never see again'. How could we resist an offer like that? So, Kate, Tony, and I followed Charlie up the hillside to the lot where his trailer used to sit. He lead us over to a large pen and proceeded to pull out a full grown, rather obese raccoon. Charlie, an avid coon hunter, had rescued the raccoon when it was only six days old when he was out hunting one day. As he raised it from infancy, the raccoon is quite tame and was licking Charlie's face and seemed completely at home in Charlie's arms and even let me and Kate pet him. Charlie is completely in love with his pet as is evidenced by the raccoon's well fed physique and his spacious home. Charlie also has a slew of coon dogs, three of which we were able to meet. Never lacking in creativity, Charlie told us that some of their names include: Bryant's Mountain Insane Night Train, Bryant's Mountain Crazy Daisy, and Queen Bee. Seeing this mountain man so happy holding his pet and telling us all about his coon dogs made me entertain for a brief moment the idea of my own pet coon. However, have no fear, I have not become so much of a mountain woman that I will be out trapping myself one any day soon.

Charlie and I with the Coon