Construction and concentration

I can't tell you the sound of one hand clapping, but I can definitely tell you the sound of sixty people hammering--it's LOUD!
After spending the last couple of days educating ourselves about the city and what each of the areas looked like in the wake of Katrina, it was a great feeling to finally get out to our site and start working.
Our project is in New Orleans East. Most of the homes are still standing in this area, but many of them are still boarded up or seriously damaged.
We started our morning earlier than I'd care to mention, crowning lumber and grading the terrain to draw water away from the foundation of the two houses. The sun had yet to make an appearance, so as we dug the earth up around the foundations, the water started pooling between the two lots. When we started sinking into the mud up to our calves, we decided to call it quits until the sun dried up some of the water.
We moved on to laying down termite shields, strapping down floor joists, and nailing rim joists. We learned a lot of cool construction words that I promptly forgot, experienced the beautiful Louisiana sunshine, drove 86 million nails, and got generally dirty...it was fantastic.
New Orleans is feeling more and more like home every day.