Fall into these arms of mine
I’ll catch you every time you
Fall
The reason that Clay Walkers lyrics are starting this email is because I’m EXHAUSTED!!!!!!!! But I’m SOOOOOO happy! So it doesn’t even matter! We’ve been doin service still! Not as much because we have to pace ourselves since there’s going to be work for months to come but the work we did yesterday was probably the hardest and the stinkiest. A new area of High River was finally opened up this week for people to go back to their homes and so we were called by President to go back out. The thing that we realized is that as bad as the devastation has been in recent homes that we’ve worked in, it all pales in comparison to what we’ll continue to do. I thought that I’d smelt the worst of the worst from the houses that we’ve worked in the past few weeks….but the home went into yesterday and the homes that we will continue to go in are only going to get worse and worse the longer that water is in them. Carpet and fridges are the main culprits but many other items add to the noxious fumes that we deal with. The home we went into yesterday hadn’t been touched. The owners were members and they looked at the basement for the first time when we did. The water had reached the ceiling and the dry wall soaked it up and the entire ceiling had fallen down. There were items like a workout ball that had floated up and had been wedges in the ceiling joists and many other things that were just out of place. The wood and other things are getting so water logged that demo is a lot easier for door frames and windows and such but it makes dry wall a hassle to deal with. The stuff just crumbles and weighs a TON with all of the water absorption.
Insulation, couches, and mattresses are the other troubles because they can absorb SO much water and get SO heavy. It’s such an exhausting experience to strip a basement down to studs and get things out of the house and onto the front lawn but it’s really satisfying to see the transformation from start to finish. We started work at 8:30 in the morning and finished at about 5:30……so much work. I’ve got a good before and after pic:) The houses are also getting A LOT of mold that adds to the smell and difficulty and then the river mud just smells like poop by itself. I was a genius though and took a full tresemme shampoo bottle and started squirting it everywhere to give a different edge to the smell in the basement!haha It helped quite a bit at times! The owners were pretty bummed because they only moved in about 4 months ago and had a lot of nice stuff but they had a really positive attitude and were even joking about things a lot of times. They were a nice older couple and were very appreciative. It’s crazy the destruction that water can do though. There was a piano that I just took apart with my bare hands and a shower that I dismantled without any tools. Crazy stuff but I love that I’m able to be a part of it on my mission.
It’s good to hear about everything back at home! Sounds like Jess is tearing it up and Trav and Aust are doing well!
I hope the business can see some improvements and the farm gets the right weather at the right time during this harvest season!
Love you all!