Thursday May 26, 2022

The weather this week has alternated between pleaant and dreadful.  The temperature has been pleasant, in the 70's mostly, so we have not had to deal with temperatures that make you feel like you are melting.  On the other hand, it has rained just about every day, not all day, but for long stretches, like all night last night.  There are puddles everywhere, and much of the grass is flooded. Fortunately we have been mostly working inside. It would be a mess if we were putting up siding or staining woodwork instead.

We hung more drywall today and got at least one room and a closet done.  JD tried to talk us into sticking around for a couple more days to finish the job.  Alas, as is the case most years, we will leave the job for someone else to finish.  Unfortunately, this year there are not a lot of other groups scheduled, so we have tried to finish as much as possible.  

We have gotten it down to a pretty efficient system.  Somebody measures the wall, somebody else measures the dry wall, somebody cuts it down to size, somebody screws it into the wall, and Dino goes to work with his dremel cutting holes in it where required.  I had never heard of a dremel before.  It is this cool little tool used to cut holes in drywall.  Dino originally referred to it as a dreidel, which I suppose is what they call it in Israel.  

Here Kristin measures drywall before Lindsey cuts it.  Kristin has to do the measuring, because if anybody else comes up with measurements, she won't believe them.

                           Dino and Andy screw it into place.

JD's nail gun works much faster.  He insisted that Natalie and Lyndsie give it a try.

The nail gun is loud! Is is powered by a gas canister and is more powerful than you might think.  JD demonstrated by firing a couple of nails at the house next door.

Here are the two houses and here is where the nail embeded.  Moral of the story:  Never get a guy with a nail gun mad at you.  

The crew has found ways to amuse themselves in between hanging sheets of drywall.  

 Dino found a way to use his new toy, the dremel, with his new career as an artiste!

And others found other ways to amuse themselves.

We usually get around to shooting a group picture at the end of the week, sometimes on Friday and sometimes on Saturday morning.  A few times we have taken them on Thursday to accommodate people who have to leave early, but this year, as long as we have a small crew and both JD and Lorenzo were present, we took it today.

                                                                                                                                                              

Nicole entertained all of us during lunch with a dramatic reading from her latest favorite book, 

I Need a New Butt!

CLARKSDALE

We took Thursday afternoon off and made a visit to Clarksdale and the Delta Blues Museum.

We got a chance to watch an artist paint a mural on the side of the Ground Zero Blues Club.

    But back at the Delta Blues Museum, Dino got to give away a couple more of his drawings. 

But the really cool part was when the part of the crew went to Ground Zero Blues Club later in the evening.  The guys in the picture were playing and the one on the left brought along his picture.  So now it sits in a place of pride on the wall behind the drummer at Ground Zero. 

I wasn't there, so I am trying to talk someone who was into writing up a description of what happened.  Stay tuned.