Foothills Convocation Tornado Relief: Day One=Success

The trip actually began last night after arriving at our home for the week: St. Philip's Episcopal Church of Fort Payne, Alabama. Their rector was more than welcoming and gave us instructions on how to use the various appliances (which we probably won't need since we have more pre-made food than we know what to do with--thanks guys!). We all hit the hay pretty early last night in our various rooms in the church and slept really well (yeah right :) ).

This morning we got off to an early start (5:30 am...aren't you proud mom and dad?) and hit the road to find out what our assignment for the day was going to be. We met up with our local contact, Woody, and he sent us to a house in Rainsville. The homeowner was attempting to rebuild part of his house and had trees uprooted. Once we arrived we starting chainsawing (no I did not have a power tool in my hands) the tree and getting to know the family. The youngest girl was about 8 years old and was set on showing me and Tom her entire farm. Their house is set on a good amount of acreage and they have dogs, cats (kittens!), turkeys (what's the word for baby turkey?), pigs, horses, chickens and some longhorns. After she and I were successfully chased (or so we thought) by one of the roosters, it was back to work on the tree. We worked until about 1 pm and decided to call it quits based on the heat and our energy levels. The homeowner was more than grateful for the work that had been done and we were more than happy to help him. We plan to work with him for the rest of the week with his rebuilding and will continue to work on the trees and debris.