Day 124 - Homemade Bird Feeder (Throw) and a New Garage Roof (Receive... Gratefully!)

This was a productive day ... made all the sweeter by the fact that most of the productivity was not generated by me or Melissa!  Melissa's cousin Angie and her husband Phillip came to work on our garage.  Actually, Phillip's friend Tony and his crew worked on the garage roof while Phillip took his power washer onto the roof of the house to clean things up. 

Originally, Phillip had said he would be willing to reshingle the garage if we would buy the materials.  And we were excited about that possibility.  Afterall, that's a good deal: I would either be saving the labor costs or the time and effort of trying to figure it out myself.  (Tearing off the old shingles would not have taken too long, but putting it all back together would have taken DAYS if left to me alone.)

But when Tony came to look at the job on Monday morning, he said he thought he could get the shingles dirt cheap or donated, so I didn't need to worry about buying any.

Today they all showed up and got to work.  Melissa provided coffee and lunch, but beyond that, they refused any payment.  They didn't even want my help.  (I would have just been in the way and/or fallen through the roof at some point anyway.)  So that freed me up to get going on some of the yardwork that still needed to be done.

Since Phillip had a tall step ladder set up, I took the opportunity to get up into the front Maple and take down a birdfeeder that Ida (age 7) had made a couple of years ago.  I think we filled it with birdseed exactly once - the day we put it in the tree.  It wasn't the most convenient - or beautiful - birdfeeder around.  I don't think Ida has even noticed that it's gone. (He's been busy being sick the last few days.)

Anyway, we owe Phillip and Tony and the crew a HUGE Thank You!  Tomorrow we are planning to go apply for the kids' passports and it's going to cost around $500 to do them all.  We weren't sure how we were going to pay for the roof and the passports all out of one month's salary.  What a blessing!

We've got an Open House coming up on Sunday afternoon.  If you are so inclined, we'd appreciate your prayers for the sale of the house.  We're in unfamiliar territory ... not sure what we'll do if someone expresses interest in buying the house...we're learning as we go!

I had put off this job for so long that some of the decking was water damaged and had to be replaced...

Phillip - he's the man!