You Want to Jump From a Bridge on a Rubber Band!!??

June 21, 2011
The time really goes by fast!  We've been back home for almost two weeks and it's been a blur.  We can't believe how fast the summer is going by and all those projects in my job jar are still there. Oh well...

From Grandma Ritzman's 1914 diary -
June 14, 1914 - Sunday, went to Sunday school and church, the painters was here for three meals and all night, Frank Farst, Mr. Heller and father and mother was here in afternoon.
June 15, 1914 - Monday, done washing, set out ninety cabbage plants, had the painters for three maeals and all night, had two callers.
June 16, 1914 - Tuesday, ironed, mended, painted, and put up screen door, had the painters for three meals and all night, had two callers.
June 17, 1914 - Wednesday, hoed in garden, set out thirty five sweet potato plants, mended, had the painters for three meals and all night.
June 18, 1914 - Thursday, baked seven loaves of bread and pan of biscuts, three pies, sixty four cookies, hoed in garden, mended, had the painters for three meals and all night, Mr Gougler was here for dinner and supper, had four callers.
June 19, 1914 - Friday, churned butter, baked eighty seven spiced cookies, set out sixteen mango and eighty five cabbage plants, had the painters for three meals and all night.
June 20, 1914 - Saturday, baked eleven pies, done saturdays work, set out one hundred and seventy five cabbage plants, had the painters for three meals and all night, had two callers.
June 21, 1914 - Sunday, went  to Sunday school and church, had painters for three meals and all night, had ten callers.

I've been scratching my head some over the size of the garden that grandma was planting.  I remember that we always put up a couple large crocks of sour kraut in the basement but with more than 200 cabbage plants put out I have to think that a lot of the garden was to supply produce for sale.  Dad used to tell about having a regular route in Akron where they would take produce by horse and wagon for sale.  He would tell how the horse knew the route and grandpa would take items to houses and the horse would pull the wagon ahead and even around corners and then stop and wait until they caught up.  Ahh- the good old days.

There was another story told by dad involving horses and I think that this was while he was still young.  Grandpa and grandma were coming back over Killian Rd. after dark late at night in the buggy and probably from grandma's parents over on Pickle Rd.  They had fallen asleep at the wheel so to speak and all of a sudden they woke up and the horse had stopped at the railroad tracks on Killian and a train was passing by right in front of them.  Good horse!

I am not trying to compete with grandma but before we left the first of May I set out about a dozen tomato plants, a half dozen pepper plants, a couple of eggplants, watermelon, cantalope, and a pumpkin plant.  I had decided that if they survived OK and if not that was OK also.  Well, I think that the groundhog took out or ate a couple of the eggplants and some of the pepper plants, the watermelon and a cantalope.  But - I still have ten tomatoes of various kinds, a couple of pepper, one very weak eggplant, and a pumpkin vine that is doing well.  This past week I added four more cantalope, and some acorn squash.  I've had a row about ten feet long of asparagas that's produced for about 5 years but wanted to add some more so added twenty more roots which gives us two parallel rows about 10 - 15 feet long.  I had planned to rent a rototiller when we got back and make a much larger garden with corn, beans, and some other things but have decided to pass on that.  Just not enough time at the moment.

Back to the New Zealand trip -
Before we head to Queenstown we always tell everyone about the AJ Hackett bungy jumping center just north of town at the Kawauru River location and if anyone wants to try it that's the place to do it.  If no one from our group decides to jump it's fun to watch others do it.  Richard took the bait and decided that he was going to do it.  So on a foggy, misty morning around 9 AM we all gathered at the bungy jump center to watch Richard jump from a platform on the side of the bridge over the river with the big rubber band attached to his ankles. Apparently since it was considered late fall or winter season they no longer allowed jumpers to go into the water so that option was ruled out.

Richard displayed extremely nice form on the jump with a real nice swan dive.  You can share the experience watching the YouTube video of the jump below.

Richard - we admire your spirit and courage to bungy jump and watching you seemed to be the best approach for the rest of us.

I may not have explained before but Richard is from a town close to Montreal, Canada.  He had applied for the trip but is 19 and the minimum age to rent a vehicle in New Zealand is 21 years old.  We kept hoping that another applicantion would come in for someone that he could pair up with to share a motor home but nothing worked out.  Joan and I discussed it and decided that if he wanted to he could ride with us during the day and then stay in a "backpacker" cabin at night.  Most if not all of the RV parks that we stay at in NZ have the backpacker cabins that are just bare bones - no bathroom, no kitchen, just a bare cabin with a heater and a few bunks or beds.

RV parks in NZ are different in that respect from US campgrounds in that they have sites including tent sites, powered sites for a motor homes, backpacker cabins, all the way to a standard motel type room.  The campgrounds have bath houses with showers and also complete kitchen facilities with cooking utensils.  Backpacking and hiking in NZ is popular and the campgrounds cater to everyone from those on foot to those in motor homes.

Back to Richard - Richard was a very nice young man to have with us and we really enjoyed having him with us.  All of us on the team were old enough to be his grandparents but his personality and ability to get along with us oldsters allowed us to enjoy each others company.  We all bonded well and enjoyed traveling and working together.  Hopefully some of our paths will cross again in the future.

Richard got talking with one of the previous partner family homeowners who was volunteering on the worksite and found out that he did tattooing.  Maori men and women have a lot of tattoos as part of their culture and he had quite a few himself. He offered a free tattoo to any of the volunteers who would like one and Richard decided that he would (he was the only one on our team by the way).    Joan asked Richard some motherly type questions: are you sure you want to do this?, what would your mom and dad say?, etc.  The only other word of advice she gave him was make sure that his shirt sleeve would cover the tattoo when he stood in front of the church to get married.  

Below Titia and the two plumbers working on the house came by to watch the action.  Left click on pictures to enlarge them.

Below is the finished art work.  It came out pretty nice with the fern leaf and Maori symbol above.



More NZ Building

June 11, 2011

It's been a busy week since we got home last Tuesday sorting through a pile of mail and just getting reconnected with family and friends but will continue trying to get up to date.  From a practical standpoint about once a week seems to be as often that I can get something together for the blog.

From Grandma Ritzman's diary:

Some of grandma's entries become a little repetitive but I still find her daily life in 1914 interesting.  In some later diaries her writing style changed a little and gave more personal insight into things.  For now here's more from June of 1914. 

Grandma mentioned that the painters have been there and they were painting either the house or the barn.  It's likely it was the house as the barn was built in 1911 and would only have been three years old.  The barn may not have been painted originally so it may also have been what they were working on.  Apparently my grandparents were providing food and housing while they were doing the painting.  Sleeping quarters for the painters may have been in the barn as it seems that there was other family or friends staying often.

On one of the listings of costs of items from way back when there was a list of painting supplies and it included such things as white lead oxide and linseed oil so apparently they mixed the white paint themselves.  The cost of the painters labor and materials to paint the barn and house must have been a major hit to the annual budget.

June 5, 1914 - Friday, baked ten pies, cleaned cellar, father was here for dinner, painted flower stand, hoed in garden, the painters was here for three meals and all night, baked a cake.

June 6, 1914 - Saturday, done saturdays work, mowed the lawn, painted a flower stand and cellar windows, hoed in garden, the painters was here for three meals and all night.

June 7, 1914 - Sunday, went to Sunday schoo., had the painters for three meals and all night, Aunt Mary, Aunt Vin, Uncle George, Father, Mother, Hazel, Maud and Walter Smith was here in the afternoon.

June 8, 1914 - Monday, done washing, mended, hoed in the garden, had the painters for three meals and all night.

June 9, 1914 - Tuesday, churned butter, swept upstairs, painted window screens for summerhouse, had painters for three meals and all night, hoed in garden.

June 10, 1914 - Wednesday, ironed, mended, washed crocks, put up window screens in summerhouse, set out thirty five sweet potato plants had painters for three meals and all night.

June 11, 1914 - Thursday, baked eight loaves and bread and biscuits, painted four screen door frames, had the painters for three meals and all night, Mr. Gougler (carpenter) was here for dinner and supper, had three callers in afternoon.

June 12, 1914 - Friday, baked two pies, painted storm doors and put them away for summer, fixed and painted two screen doors and put them up, set out sixty five tomato plants, had the painters for three meals and all night, Mr. Gougler was here for dinner and supper, Hazel was here for supper, had three callers in afternoon.

June 13, 1914 - Saturday, baked ten pies, done saturdays work, mended, painted, and put up one screen door, had painters for three meals and all night, Mr. Gougler was here for dinner and supper, had two callers.

Back to the New Zealand Habitat build.  We had a good time on the build working on the houses and interacting with the partner families in the neighborhood, local volunteers and with the affiliate supervision.  Work can be fun and we all enjoyed the time spent doing this volunteer work.  The site supervisors always had a number of different tasks to be done so as they said at the beginning of the day - if you don't like what you're doing just ask for something else to do.

Here's Dwight waiting for the next panel to be put into position.

Left click on picture to enlarge.

William, a local volunteer is nailing in a 3x2 on the outside perimeter of the walls.

William was getting some help from Sami (partner family whose house was dedicated the Sunday before) to keep the 3x2's plumb.

Some of the plumbers handywork in the joists under the second floor bathroom.

Our supervisor Mike showing his nailing technique.  Make sure you hit the right nail!

Here's a view of the second floor floor joists in place with the floor sheeting stacked waiting to be put in place.  Notice the blocking in place between the joists down the middle.  Here on the New Zealand north island these are called nogs, on the south island they are called dwangs.  Interesting!

Working while sitting down here Therese and Marilyn are painting the Hardy backer board siding for installation later.

Dwight and Kathy are nailing 3x2's in place.  Kathy really found her niche with that nailing gun, maybe enpowered is more the word.  Imagine going from a quilting hobby to using a nail gun?  I don't know where "Cabin Boy" came from on her hard hat, probably a previous volunteer.

Kathy seems to be saying - "give me a nail gun and a saw and I can handle anything..."  Dwight admires her enthusiasm.

Here Richard is using his newly learned skill of using the chop saw.  "Tell me how long you want it and I'll make it" were his words.

Here's our supervisor Titia admiring (?) our work.  Thanks for your guidance Titia.

Life is Good, God is good down under!

Next time:  bungy jumping and tattooing.



Back to Building

June 4, 2011

We are back in the good old USA once again having arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon.  We are down in Long Beach, CA until Tuesday enjoying the good life here in southern California with my cousins from Palm Desert.  We have had beautiful weather here with blue skies and temps in the low 70's.  We will be leaving Tuesday for home in Ohio.

As usual I am behind in real time with the blog so will be trying to get caught up once I have a good internet link.  The hotel we are in has a very weak wifi link unless I go sit in the lobby but I prefer the comforts of the room.

From Grandma Ritzman's 1914 diary:

May 31, 1914 - Sunday, went to Sunday school and church, read five chapters of Jeremiah, Leland was here for breakfast and dinner, the painters was here for three meals and all night, had five callers in afternoon.

June 1, 1914 - Monday, done washing, the painters was here for three meals and all night.

June 2, 1914 - Tuesday, churned butter planted peas, beans and radishes in garden, the painters was here for three maals and all night.

June 3, 1914 - Wednesday, ironed, mended, the painters was here for three meals and all night.

June 4, 1914 - Thursday, baked eight loaves of bread and pan of biscuits, worked in the garden, the painters was here for three meals and all night.

Back to the building program, below is the left side and right side of the finished duplex homes.  This was one day after the dedication and the families were about 90% moved in.  The places look real nice I think.

Left click on the pictures to enlarge them.

After the dedication on Sunday we went back to work on the new homes that started from the bare slab the day we arrived.  Hopefully the description below will give you an idea of the construction method currently being used.



Below you see the T supports that are holding up the ceiling panels from the bottom side.  These panels are really heavy and have to be lifted into position with a crane.  These are similiar to the wall panels which are made from a type of particle board.  These supports have to stay in place until the floor joists for the second floor are installed and then clips are installed between the second floor joists (or trusses in the case of a single story) and the panels.  Before the the joists are put in place metal plates or strips about 2 1/2 inches wide are installed over all the joints between panels.  First adhesive is put along the edges of the joint and then the plate is screwed down with about a gazillion screws.  The screws of course do not penetrate through the panel.  The panels are prefinished and form the finished surfaces for the walls and ceiling.  Other than minor patching of any holes or scars from the installation the finishing is done and ready for painting.  No gypboard or drywall is required.



Here a couple of the students from a local college that have worked with us are installing the clips that hold the ceiling panels up against the floor joists.  The clips are angle clips about three inches long and screwed to the top of the ceiling and the joist.  A side plate is installed around the perimeter of the house flush with the outside of the first floor walls and any other interior openings.  The red colored joists are used in dry areas and slightly green joists are used for the side plates and upstairs bathrooms or any area that might be subjected to dampness.  Once these clips are in place then the T props downstairs can be removed.  The same procedure is used on the second floor ceilings.

Here Dwight and Marilyn are putting up the fence on the back property line.  Quite a job!

A darn nice looking fence - nice job!

Below Therese and Richard are sorting and painting the siding for the new houses.



Here you see the first floor of the homes in place and the second floor joists are being installed or in place.  The vertical 3x2's form kind of a balloon type of construction keeping things flush and plumb.  The siding is attached to these.

 Back at the RV park after a hard days work.