Taking a Short Break

We have left the OWL Center after 3 weeks.  Here are some of the things our group of 9  accomplished:

Replaced and painted front door of office
Removed hideabed from Samantha's office
Primed and painted Samantha's office
Dismantled old horse shelter and moved roof to Maze area
Designed and built replacement horse shelter (larger)
Helped Miss Laurie with lunch preparation
Serviced large Bush hog and large lawn mowers
Power washed and cleaned conference room tables and chairs
Dismantled cardboard wall partitions and moved them to loft in tool shed
Dismantled staging and moved to white horse shelter
Replaced and painted back door of office
Primed and painted letters for new OWL sign
Trimmed shrubs by front door
Assisted Samantha with students on horses, three rimes
Scraped, primed, and painted NE entrance gate
Power washed and cleaned north end of office building
Power washed front sidewalk at office
Cleaned and prepared 8 rooms at the Lodge for guests
Painted numbered signs for Samantha
Cleaned and prepared strawberries for jam
Cleaned north greenhouse
Started clearing south greenhouse
Prepared 2 batches of salsa
Fixed broken desk support
Washed Conference Center Windows

We had a long list of things to do, which we like to have.  We were unable to get to everything.  There is always lots of work available here.  Some former Nomads, who are still RVing “Snowbirds”, come here on their own every winter to “drop in” and help out wherever they can.

One of the special activities included a field trip to the main campus in Ruston, LA where we got a tour of the classrooms and met with the school principal.  I should point out that the Louisiana Children’s Home is a Residential Psychiatric Treatment facility, not just a school, or an orphanage, but is a very intense place which houses teens with many difficult problems.  One of the more effective ways of reaching out to them involves the use of horses.  Paige got particularly close to one of the girls by leading her on Babe, the Percheron.

         

They have about 15 horses to work with, so a new (and larger) shelter was appreciated by both the staff and the horses.  Here is the new shelter and the builders:

   

Another special activity is to help bottle salsas and jams in their commercial kitchen.  These products are sold for fundraising.  Improvements to their process since we were here last, has made it possible for a group of our size to get 2 batches done using half of us for each version.

 

We finished working on Thursday and had a “going away” dinner that evening.  Two rigs pulled out on Friday morning, but the rest of us stuck around a little longer.  We left on Sunday morning for Conway Arkansas.  Two years ago we were here and stayed at a Corps of Engineers campground at Toad Suck Ferry.  For more details check out:http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/44   

We will be here for a week, taking things easy, until next week when we will help rebuild some areas damaged by heavy tornados about this time last year.