Flooring, Poems, and Gut Busters

Today was our first day on our worksite here in SWVA. We worked on redoing the living room floor in a mobile home, as well as replacing the front door. The floor was badly warped due to a leaky air conditioning unit, and the subfloor needed to be replaced. We started by pulling the nails out of the floorboards which attached (or used to attach) the floorboards to the joists. Then, we cut out sections of these boards and pulled them up piece by piece.

Bradley cutting up the old floor while Tony, Henry, and Ellen supervise.

After the old floor was taken up, we cut new supports and plywood sections to make up the new subfloor, and began screwing them into place.

Replacing the subfloor with new plywood.

We also removed the old front door from the trailer home and replaced it with a new one which had a working screen door. This necessitated Ellen and Kim spending a good while scraping old caulk off of the frame before we could install the new door.

In the process of replacing the door.

By the end of the day, we had pulled up the entire subfloor and replaced it with new supports and plywood, as well as installed a new door. Later in the week, we plan on going back to this worksite and completing the work on the floor by laying down a new laminate flooring over our completed subfloor.

Team photo at our worksite, along with the homeowner.

Seriously though, great first day on the job. I am now probably going to be addicted to power tools 👏😁 #SWVA2015
— Heather Harcum (@heatherlynn828) March 10, 2015

On the way back from the worksite, the vehicle containing Drew, Krista, Ellen, Dakota, and Dietrich came up with the following poem, which I will leave here for posterity.

At 8:00 AM I awoke.

I walked to the kitchen and almost choked.

Bradley was sitting at the kitchen table.

Tried to stand up but was not able.

Eating cheerios with peanut butter.

And then added milk straight from the udder.

According to the others in the car, Ellen then killed this game by failing to come up with a new line.

After we returned to The Manor and had dinner, we decided to go to a local restaurant, called Teddy's, to get ice cream. This began as a fairly harmless outing, with each of us ordering various types of ice cream, and Drew creating an extra long straw, which he used to drink out of Dakota's milkshake.

Drew drinking Dakota's milkshake. Ellen's "judgement" face immortalized.

However, as all of us were getting to the bottom of our ice cream dishes, Dietrich spotted an ice cream dish on the menu called "The Gut Buster." He then proposed a challenge to Drew (who had just eaten dinner, a milkshake, and part of Dakota's milkshake). Dietrich would foot the cost of a Gut Buster if Drew would eat all of it... by himself. Drew hesitated slightly, then agreed. What followed cannot be summed up in words (although it will make a hilarious video in the hopefully not-so-far-off future), so I will let the following text, written be several of our SWVA team members, and the below tweet from Heather sum it all up for now.

"Today in SWVA, we had an adventure. One of our members had a physical expenditure. Of course, we should have expected this; the warning signs were all there. The large eyes. The swelling cheeks. The inability to turn any direction other than straight ahead. He kept eating and eating. With each spoonful getting larger.  Nothing was going to stop him. Did you know if food remains in the stomach for less then two minutes then it does not decompose and looks the same as when it went in? Not even the screams of a tussle of llamas spasming in his stomach would quell his spirit.  But all of this is of little consequence; it is what came after this horrifying event that is of real interest. Because then Drew went running."

Well...this was an interesting time getting Drew to eat all of this. #SWVA2015 pic.twitter.com/LzBLrBr3pc
— Heather Harcum (@heatherlynn828) March 10, 2015

Please continue to pray for our team, as well as other teams from BCM@VT that are serving over Spring Break. We are thankful that there were only minor scrapes and scratches today, despite our team being in close quarters and using power tools all day. Please pray for our effectiveness during our trip to the food pantry in Gate City tomorrow, as well as our continued efforts at the worksite. Also, pray for safe travels for all of our team, but especially Dietrich, who will be leaving us and driving back to Blacksburg tomorrow evening.