Work & Houseboats
Hello to all. Thought I would send a bit of male perspective on unit life again.
Work has been interesting lately, as we have had lots of what I call One-Off projects. We have still been working for HFH four days a week,(Tuesday through Friday) and FRAP(Lot cleanup) 3 days per month. The Mondays have proved a nice challenge for me in the form of learning how to engineer and quote small handyman projects, order materials, and then complete them. A few projects we have worked on lately are:
A stairway down a steep driveway for a single mom in Magalia. Along with a 18’ x 12’ parking area hand hewn out of the hillside down by the road. Her driveway and front yard are steep enough, that when it gets slick and her car can’t crawl up her concrete driveway, she has no way to get up the hill to her house. Thus the need for parking spot at the bottom, and a stairway up. Along with that we made a pad for a mini barn, and lots of pressure treated wood retaining wall throughout her yard.
An older lady in Thermalito needed a new back yard fence, electric wheel chair ramps, yard cleanup, and garage cleaned out to where she can use her garage as a secondary point of escape in case of fire. We very much enjoyed working with her, as she was most appreciative, and has since set her alarm for 12 noon to pray for all of us by name. She tells us she prays for safety, blessing, wisdom for our lives. Last Saturday we went back to Oroville to her Mom’s house and began attacking the jungle that was her back yard. Think grape vines, lemon trees, apple trees, and olives that have had multiple years to just go crazy. I am still trying to work out how we are going to haul off all the branches in this yard.
Two of the guys helped a lady move from what was her home to an apartment in Paradise. It’s a sad story about a daughter that due to insurance wanted or needed to be included on the title…? (I’m not clear on the details), somehow legally wrangled her Mom off the title, and evicted her from her home. Keep in mind the Mom was around 65, disabled and in a wheelchair.
These projects in spite of their challenges(for me), have breathed good life into the unit. We have loved watching the unit boys experience service on a personal level. They come home with stories to tell, and even arguments about whose “old lady” was better.lol(this happened on the day we split up and helped the lady in Paradise move, and the lady in Thermalito.)
As for HFH, The house on Terry Lane is coming along beautifully. It seems like a month ago we were doing dirt work and forming a foundation. Next week we will work on finishing the flooring, install baseboard, and touch up paint on the interior. The exterior is complete except for two concrete steps, a bit of trim painting, and spreading the black gravel 5’ around the structure that fire code requires.
The two houses on Copeland, are nearing completion as well. The drywallers just finished last week, we finished the siding(except for porches) and they are ready for exterior paint, interior paint, cabinets, flooring, and trim. It has been very cool for me to help with 3 houses from the ground up.
Switching to more fun stuff, I wanted to give a small report on our recent trip to Lake Oroville. Our neighbors Aaron and Shannon Singer own a time share in the “Sunnyside”. She is a vintage yellow roofed houseboat, that they keep moored in the Lime Saddle Marina. Aaron has tried to get each set of houseparents out to the boat at least once during their stay. Friday night after work saw the unit loading vast quantities of stuff into the big white van and the pickup for the 10 minute drive down to Lime Saddle. If any of you doubt the volume of items needed for a family of four, plus 4 youth boys to eat 2 meals, spend the night, and survive for 24 hours on one small boat…….well, I invite you to try it. The houseboats are all anchored to large floating metal balls, that are tethered to the banks by a intricate underwater cable system. This system is required to operate with quite sizable fluctuation in water level. To elaborate, the lake was at full pool when we went, and the water under the houseboat(in our particular little finger of Oroville Lake) was 180’ deep. Aaron told us that a few years ago they had to move the houseboat further into the lake, to keep it from going aground. As a side note Oroville Lake is one of, if not the largest earthen dam in the U.S., and the water at the dam is around 650’ deep at full pool. Anyhow the launch took us and our baggage out to the Sunnyside around 5p.m., and we were officially marooned until the launch starts running at around 7 the next morning. The houseboat roof doubles as a patio, complete with picnic table, lounge chairs, a place to jump off into the water, and a water slide. The water was perfectly warm, and a total joy to jump into. We all swam for a while, then fired up the onboard gas grill for burgers. Anthony fried bacon on our little tailgate blackstone, and with the addition of cheese, tomato and all the fixings, it made for some pretty good eating. After supper we noticed a few fish jumping, and started throwing some topwaters. Max was in the kayak about a 100’ from the houseboat when he made his first cast. A largemouth must have been waiting just below the surface, because I don’t think his lure even touched the water. It made for a lot of good memories.
Aaron had told us the best part was swimming after dark, and we all were planning on trying this. However the hour got late, and the breeze got cold, and we were thinking more about beds and blankets than about swimming. The unit boys bedded down on the roof, and we nested in the cabin. By the time we convinced our boys that yes their stuffed animals were all there, yes the unit boys were sleeping upstairs, no it was not too hot, yes we could get them a drink yet, etc. etc. it was 11:30pm. Chels and I fell into our beds, her on a tiny stuffy bunk with no air flow, and me on a thin mat on the floor. Needless to say it was not a restful night, and I was thankful to see light streaming through the windows in the morning… for about 3 minutes. George’s blonde head popped up and he stage whispered “Dad! Its morning!” My clock said it was 5:43am. I told them very sternly that we were going back to bed, but relented after 10 minutes of wiggling and giggling. I snuck them out to try and let my wife sleep, and finally took them in the kayak back to the boat ramp to try and give the others some peace. We ran home to collect the eggs that we had forgotten, and got back around 8. Breakfast was pancakes, eggs, and bacon, eaten while standing around in swimming trunks and the t-shirts we walked on the boat with. Several more bass were pulled in off the boat deck, and then swim time! A couple from the valley showed up with their boat, and took us on a 24 mile jaunt(one way) up through the lake to Feather Falls. Feather Falls is the 6th highest falls in the U.S. and is around a 600’ drop. The water was cold, crystal clear, and there were perfect rocks for jumping off of. After an hour or two of swimming, fishing, exploring, and some low key gold mining we headed back. We arrived back too late for the launch and our friends ended up running us and our embarrassing luggage back to the dock. Everything was stuffed in vehicles, dumped on the patio at the house to be cleaned up later, and we all headed straight for Chico and supper. Hot showers and soft beds never felt so good. All in all it will go down in my books as one of my favorite experiences here.
A quick note on the gold mining mentioned above. The locals insist that there is still plenty of gold in them thar hills. We hear that in the spring after the rivers have all run high through the winter, you can go dig the mud out of cracks in the granite along the streambanks, and find gold dust if you know how to pan correctly. Gold is heavier than most materials, and thus will settle in the rock cracks, just waiting for you to come find it. Don’t get your hopes up too high however, word on the curb is that if you mined full time you would still make less than the CA minimum wage of $16.50 per hour. Plus the 25’ers doesn’t sound near as cool as the 49’ers…
Our term feels like its sliding quickly to a close. We are with the last four boys that we will be with.(Anthony King-Mifflinburg, PA. John Peters-Ulysses, KS. Riley Warkentin-Finger Lakes, NY. and Quinlin Unruh-Guntersville AL.) Suddenly we are the next ones to leave, and we have very mixed feeling on whether we are OK with this or not. It will be wonderful to be with Kansas family and friends again, and wiggle our toes in Kansas dirt……but, it does feel like we have made connections and friends here that will always draw a part of our hearts to Paradise and the valley. I keep telling myself to not be sad its over, but to be glad it happened.
Till next time..