We have come so far from where we started, and again, we could NOT have done it without the help of friends, family, and our new neighbors!

Jerry Reid came through for us again...he introduced us to our neighbors, Don and Margaret Brown....what a Godsend! We were counting on 18 inch bales but we forgot to check with the farmer about that and ended up with 19 inch bales. We needed some way to cut 5 inches off of the top of a bale of straw...not one bale of straw...but 75 bales of straw! Well, there's the old fashioned way...the hand saw...oh my! There's a more modern tool called a chain saw but we weren't sure what kind of job that would do on a bale of straw. And then there's Don and Margaret's portable sawmill! Yeah! We were saved! It's a wonderful machine...now my MOST favorite power tool!

And look what a nice job it did to finish this wall...

And again, thanks for our small Saturday crew: Jeannie, Jerry, Lynda, and Nancy...

And to our larger Sunday crew, pictured below:

Alex (Michael's friend), Michael Hofer, Don, Kathy Hofer, Curt Hofer, Coni, Don Brown, Jeannie St. John, Jerry Reid, and Margaret Brown. Much thanks for a job well done!

Please RSVP to coni.barlow@wayne.edu if you are interested in helping this weekend...we will be stuffin' the holes in the walls to prevent that cold north wind from blowing between the bales....maybe we'll even start plastering! Hope to see you there!