Another week has slipped by. This week Monday another volunteer invited Annette to join her and her husband at Adaptation Station, a unit of the Arizona Dept. of Economics. Here they provide consultation, design, fabrication and training related to adaptive equipment for people with disabilities who cannot afford retail priced items. They only pay for the materials. Here I helped with sanding some of the wood projects that were built and laundered some new fabrics that were waiting to be used in some future need. Then the rest of the week I joined the many others at CHRPA.
Jim's work week included tasks like replacing a water heater, a few furnaces, and solving plumbing leaks.
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The rural road system that we have had to use to get to some of the remote job sites falls somewhere between unmaintained roads and trails. Although there are some street signs, a GPS is required to find your way there and back to a paved road again. As you can see in the picture these "roads" function better as drainage ditches than for travel. Some spots being 3 feet below the surrounding ground.
Annette helped Josh with a roof repair by removing broken shingles and replacing them with new ones.
At 7:30 a.m. each work day all the staff and volunteers meet in the office to receive their instructions. We are paired in twos, given folders with client info, address and a brief description of the repair required. We are also assigned a vehicle for the day.
This Thursday mornings CHRPA school was taught by our South Korean volunteer from the Presbyterian Church. She showed us the two different types of PEX plumbing connectors that they have available for water piping and how to use the tools to make proper connections.
On Thursday, Jim and I were assigned to the same site where we had worked a week ago replacing the plywood on a deck. Now we were to finish screwing it down and painting the deck. This mobile home was located in a trailer park with a nice name but most of the trailers looked like they needed some work. It was a little ironical to see the trailer park sign that called these homes estates.
This is normally the dry season here in the desert, but with a cold front moving through the last three days have been cloudy and rainy with Friday having a substantial rainfall amounting to nearly two inches, and with the higher elevations (over 7500 feet) getting snow. This would not be a good time to venture out on the desert roads we described earlier.
After two days of rain we enjoyed a sunny afternoon visit to the Tucson Botanical Gardens. A tranquil oasis in the heart of Tucson that promotes responsible and appropriate use of plants and water in a desert environment.
Upon the recommendations of friends we checked out one of many exhibit halls of the largest, oldest and most prestigious gem and mineral show in the world. Lots of sparkly and expensive rocks from around the world.
