End of the second week.

We have reached the end of the second work week at Father's Heart Ranch.  We have had an opportunity to meet more of the boys and the staff who put in the hours to watch them.  This week was a pretty normal (if there is such a thing) week with a number of maintenance things to be done.

Our little friends have been working on the feeder pretty hard.  We have to refill it about every four or five days.

For Billie the job is pretty "normal".  (Frankly, I don't believe they have had anyone to scan their work and file it for them for quite a spell.) 

They do have a pretty good system.  Their computers are on the system with the scanner and she can scan a stack of papers is a very short time.  Then she goes back to the computer and puts them all into their respective files.

For me this started out as a "potty" week.  The men's bathroom in the "B" house (all of the houses are designated with a letter) had a stool which would stick and run all night.  With a couple of minor adjustments we got it back into good working order.

Then the tile (you can see three of them here) in back of the stool in "G" house had all fallen off the wall.  Well, as most know, tiles don't just fall of the wall.  During the initial investigation I found that the tank was leaking and the water had run back into the wall therefore making the tile all fall off.  First order of business was to remove the tank and fix the leak.  Then the wall had to be cleaned and dried so I could add some quick set compound to replace the drywall which had been soaked and fallen out.  Then came the retileing and finally the grout.

The really bad one was the one in the office.  When you sat on it it would rock like a rocker, only sideways.  Upon removing the stool I discouvered that the drain was not installed properly and the bolts which hold the stool in place had simply pulled the flange off and were not holding anything. 

After drilling a couple of holes on the concrete floor I mixed a batch of epoxy and glued the bolts permately to the floor.

Then we needed a batch of hydraulic floor patch to level the remainder of the floor and let it cure overnight.

With a little bit of cleaning and then resetting the stool and the bathroom is back in business.

"C" house and "G" house have had a leak around the swamp cooler.  Two gallons of blackjack and the problem should go away.  We may find out this weekend as we have a 30% chance of rain.

Then it was a return to the cafeteria.  The door closer on the back door was not working and needed to be replaced....

...and the cabinet we had put together for the donor dinner still had no hardware or locks.

  Then, the soap despensor, which was held together with duct tape, finally got replaced.

Just a typical week at the "Ranch".