Work

I have time to post about what I did Saturday! A little late, but whatever.

My request for a day off was approved at the last moment. But there was a catch. I had to be at work at 5 AM - 6 AM to take care of some business. At 6 AM I clocked out and drove to the Habitat For Humanity job site.

The project involved building 10 homes in 2 weeks. The 10 homes were all sponsored by various organizations. Miami-Dade County sponsored one, Publix Super Markets had one, Florida Power And Light had one, and so on.

For the County sponsored home, each day a different department had to supply the labor. My department was there on the final day of the build blitz. The house was there, the roof was pretty much finished, the windows were in place, the doors were hung, and so on.

What was left to do was green the place in, and do some finishing work on the house. Shelves had to be hung, windows needed to be cleaned, all the construction mess had to be cleaned up, baseboards had to be glued in place, tile had to be put down, and so on.

Somehow, I managed to draw the "green the place in" jobs. The site was stripped bare by all the building. Not a blade of grass to be found anywhere. But this was OK, because the forklifts dropped off piles of sod and a truck came by with oak trees in pots. How lucky!

I started off the day laying sod. This is actually very easy. You just take a hose, wet the ground till its all muddy and nasty, plop the sod in place, then water some more. Not too bad. There were also some little plants that were already in the ground around the front porch. This area was to get some mulch. And of course water.

So I put down some sod - but not much. The women on my team did most of this. Early in the day my main job was to shovel mulch into carts, and then dig holes.

Digging a hole in South Floirda is a bitch and a half. You get about a foot down - IF you are lucky - then you hit limestone. The good part is that limestone is soft and easy to break up with some simple tools - the BAD NEWS is that there is a whole lot of it.

But the trees needed about a three to four foot hole to be planted in. Someone painted some circles on the freshly laid sod, and I got to work digging it up. At first I made pretty good progress with a shovel, but it was not long before I needed the pick axe.

It is not a mental challenge to dig a hole. You shovel the loose dirt till it is too rocky to dig, put the shovel down, pick up the pick, break up the rocks, then use the shovel again. Inch by lousy inch you dig the hole. My house had three trees to plant. I dug one of those holes - mostly on my own but I did have some help.

After doing such a good job with the pick axe, they had me dig the mailbox post hole. For post hole digging you need a trenching shovel OR a post hole digger and a breaker bar. A trenching shovel is similar to a regular shovel only the blade is very narrow and longer. A post hole digger looks like a giant ear wax removal tool. It has two long handles attached to some steel blades on a pivot. You bring the poles close together, stick the blades (which are in the "open" position at this point) into the dirt, move the handles apart (closing the blades so they grip the dirt), then remove the tool from the hold and dump the dirt out.

The breaker bar is simply a large heavy steel pole, with a chisel point at one end. You use the breaker bar by beating the crap out of something with it. Kind of like a jack-hammer only MUCH slower progress.

but I dug out the post hole, which was deeper than the tree hole - but not at wide. It was not as hard to dig out. The mailbox post was set in place, concrete mix was dumped in the hole (one whole bag), and then water was added to the hole. Then the dirt was replaced.

Next job for me was tree staking. For this I needed some tree stakes (in this case cut up sections of steel re-bar), a sledge hammer, and a regular hammer. I used the regular hammer to start the stake into the ground. When the regular hammer stopped working I used the claw part of the hammer to hold the stake, stepped on the handle of the hammer to prevent it from moving, then used the sledge to drive the stake into the ground.

This was work. I put in the stakes for all three trees, and then tied the trees to the stakes. This wil give them a chance to root without a strong wind blowing them over. After a few months the new homeowner will have to remove the stakes.

If you want to stake your new trees - you must remember to do one thing. SET THE STAKES AT AN ANGLE AWAY FROM THE TREE! This is very important. Driving the stakes straight in will make them easy to pull out. All you need is a 15 - 20 degree angle sway from the tree.

All this made me remember something. At "work" I really do not "work". I am inside an air conditioned building wearing a suit. Yea I have to walk a lot - but big deal. I have legs and feet. But I am in an air conditioned building wearing a suit! How much work can I possibly be doing!

The answer is not much. Real work is digging a hole in South Floirda. You do not see people wearing a suit ever doing this. When I go home from a regular day at "work" I do not wake up the next morning sore. Well Sundaty I was a bit sore here and there. And a little sun burnt.

But it was a good experience. I will do it again the next time Dade County sponsors a Habitat For Humanity home. I am getting to be a fairly decent hole digger.