working with Dad

So...
When I went to Ohio, not only did I go and have a birthday party for my grandma...


I also ended up on a little work project with my dad. Here's what we spent our Saturday and Sunday doing. Installing the pipes for an external woodburning stove that will heat my parents' house.


Growing up, we always heated our house with wood. Dad has decided that with the high prices for fuel... especially natural gas... that he is going to return to heating with wood (something that can be gotten fairly easily with a little bit of work... but much less money).

So we spent Saturday and Sunday digging a 6 inch trench with this trencher. The ditch is about 160 feet long and was about 30 inches deep. Then we buried the pipe and covered the ditch back over.

It was fun. It had been a while since I had worked on a project like this with my dad. My dad is so good at doing this sorts of jobs. He's just so smart at figuring stuff like this out and he can do almost anything. I have often said that "there isn't a tool made that doesn't fit my dad's hand" and he proved it again working with this trencher (which he had never done until Saturday night). But it was fun to work on a little project like this.



But there as another aspect of this job that was both enjoyable and tiring. I love what I do with students. I love teaching God's word and encouraging students to incorporate it into their lives. I love hanging out with them... following up with them. I love the creativity of designing something from nothing (like a talk or a game).

But there's just something about a couple of days of hot, hard, stinky work outside when you get completely dirty and sweaty and all you want to do is sit around afterwards. I miss that sometimes working in my office. I don't often go home from a day at the office like that. But it was fun to work that way for a couple of days.

And it was fun to work with my dad.

Jim