I have been working on a deck project in Crown Hill for the past week or so. Since getting home, God has faithfully provided as much work as I have the time to undertake. I am working for the Pigott family. They are travelers, like myself, or at least they were before Gretchen was born. They have been a delight to work for thus far.
Yesterday I poured a small concrete pad which the stairs off the deck will land on. As Robert and I did a brief walk through of the progress, I asked that he not allow his dog in the back. No one likes to revisit their work to find the unintended, vandal paw marks of confused, lead-footed beasts. Robert understood, but said that he would not be able to keep his wife from it. This gave me pause to think.
My friend Hannah and I had recently discussed the “signing” of concrete by those who did not place it. Though this is a tradition of the passerby in America, to me it has always smacked of bathroom stall scratching and Sharpie name scrawling. It is vandalism. Yeserday, however, when Erika came to the back to see the work, I handed her a 2&1/2″, 10D nail to make her mark. It is her concrete, after all.
And what an honor it is to participate in the creation of something lasting. And what an honor it is to have it signed by her.
albaniacalling 