So last night the temperature plunged below freezing. The fingers of cold crept into everything, but inside the sleeping bags we stayed warm. The air was cold on any exposed skin, and my sleeping bag was covered with a film of condensate, courtesy of my body heat.
The dogs here are quite a phenomenon, they rule the night with their chorus of complaints. One dog starts, and they all go off. Time means nothing to them - they bark, yammer, whine and howl at all hours of the night.
My question is this - if they are so loud they are waking me up in my tent on a hill, how do the people RIGHT NEXT TO THEM STAND IT? These dogs go off right outside the houses, trailers and other domiciles of their owners, and NO ONE EVER TELLS THEM TO SHUT UP! Don't they ever take their dogs inside? It was below zero last night. Maybe the dogs raise Cain to stay warm?
The ladies at the Native American trading post told us today about a guy "giving away" a trailer in Ukiah. I found his ad on Facebook, and the trailer is a handsome model in desperately bad shape. He is asking $500.00 or best offer.
I am praying for a surge of donations, enough to get us this beaten up shell, which we can slowly turn into a working house.
In the meantime, our hosts responded to the unseasonal cold with a raft of courtesies; but they have their own issues to manage. A trailer would be the least problematic form of housing, due to the obvious fact that it can be moved. So, I'm putting it out there. All of you going to the toilet inside, on a smooth seat, sleeping indoors, cooking indoors, consider us, and help if you can.
The guys are smoothly integrating into the local community, and in my own slower way so am I. Between our work here, making friends, and planning for the future everyone stays busy; but they also have to teach me how to use my phone. This may be the most challenging of our tasks - I am not friendly to these intrusive little blabber boxes. But, they can do anything my computer can, albeit in a convoluted fashion, with mealy mouthed demands to let it share everything with everyone all the time. But, I have created and posted entries using only the phone. Progress!
People in town here aways ask us what we are hauling, or delivering. The top guess seems to be ice cream, followed by frozen meat, and after that cookies. People also like the idea of US making runs into town so they don't have to. We have determined that it costs about $30.00 in gas to get there and back, so we can arrange our charges accordingly. We also spent some time last night after dark talking about ideas, plans, services people would need, and putting together business plans and approaches. There is so much opportunity here!
People here get very excited when they see prepared food. We have been sharing breakfast with the other workers, none of whom seemed to expect breakfast! There are people here from ALL over - Europe, Central and South America, Pacifica; everyone drawn to the harvest. Speaking of which - time to get back to it.
From the (chilly) Men of EarthMission, we salute you!
No comments:
Post a Comment