October 7, 2026 – Ambucs ramp and a half day

This Floridian must be getting used to the cooler temperatures.  It seemed ‘warm?’ this morning, in the 50s.  Although we wore jackets to start the day, they were gone within an hour.  When we arrived the Ambucs team was already there, along with their tool trailer and materials.  We know many of the Ambucs workers from our visits to their bi-weekly delicious dinner meetings.  It was obvious from their process that they have done this a time or two before 😉   Although they have been at this for a long time, during this summer they’ve built one ramp a week for someone in need.  It is such a life changing mission.

They had around 8 people working on the ramp – some completing the deck outside the door and others working on building the angled ramp sections.

While that was going on, Joe and I continued our work on the front porch siding.  The piece that fit around the second window was done yesterday, but we realized that we needed to notch the end to accommodate the soffit overhang.  That led to needing to create some J channel on the corner to finish off the end.  With some guidance from the team’s siding experts, we created something that works.  

Soon after we got that piece in, it was time for our 10AM snack break.  A box of goodies filled to the brim is delivered each week from Sullivan FCCLA (Family, Career & Community Leaders of America), a local high school group.  After reading their mission below, I’m sure you agree that they should be in all high schools!

FCCLA is a national student organization that helps young men and women become better leaders in their families, careers and communities.  Students learn skills for life:  planning, goal setting, problem solving, decision making and interpersonal communication. FCCLA is the only student organization with the family as its focus.

After break, we had just one more strip to finish the front.  This is the strip that has to be cut to fit the appropriate width to the top.  Well … just our luck that this measurement was right in the fold between the upper and lower portion of each siding sheet.  It’s hard to explain, but this location is too thick at the top to fasten to the top channel.  So … back to the experts.  Terry shared with us some tricks on how to get it to work, but it’s tricky.  

Terry and Karen finished up the peak on one side of the house.  It looks great!

Bill and Jo finished up the fascia and soffit work on the other peak – so we will be able to move the scaffolding and get that going tomorrow.

Inside, the contractors were applying another coat of mud on the drywall.

Given that we don’t have much left to do on the outside (and we can’t start inside until the contractors are done), and it was getting warm this afternoon, we collectively decided to work a half day today.   Even in a half day, there was much accomplished today.  God is good.