We have a Facebook page for the people in our area to share information about our flood recovery efforts. It's a place to post relevant news and discuss what the county has told us or the latest rumors.

The other day one of the members posted that after 4 months they are finally able to get to their flooded house, and need helpers to shovel the foot of sand and mud out of the basement.

It was one of these houses along here. Their access road was completely wiped out, and the main highway wasn't in great shape, either.



Out of 50 some people who saw that post, I was the only one who showed up. Out of their family members, one nephew showed up, so there was four of us. The husband and I worked in one part of the two-car garage, and the wife and nephew in the other half.

Hubby and I worked steadily, scooping up the sand into wheelbarrows and dumping it into the moat just in front of the house, but it seemed like the other half of the garage was going so much faster. I was thinking 'Surely the two of us aren't that decrepit.' The wife kept flitting off to do other things, and the nephew, who admittedly worked all the time, were just cleaning our clock. They reached the back wall of their side and we still had a long way to go.

Finally, I said something about it, and they told me my side was 4 feet wider, and longer, too. Oh. That explains it. I didn't feel so bad.

I got there at 9:30 this morning, and we worked until about 1:30 when we took too long a break and just couldn't work up enthusiasm to keep going. After all, next weekend they are expecting 20 church volunteers to come help, so it's not as if my leaving puts them out in the cold.

I'm glad I went. I hadn't met these people until today, and it was nice getting to know them. It's fun to have a physical project to really but some muscle into. The weather was beautiful, and there was potato chips.