Polar Bears and a Killer Whale

Wait, she’s in Las Cruces NM ???

The tail of the huge blizzard that covered most of the US was in NM, and we had three days of record setting temps , -6 !!! and 3” of snow.  It stayed cold for several days so the snow lingered in small piles in the shade for quite a while.  On top of the weather’s dirty tricks, or maybe because of it, El Paso Electric lost two of its power plants and was doing rolling black outs for three days.  Water froze all over the area, and we in our RV’s were hunkered down with heaters, going through propane, pretty much to no avail. 

I have failed in the past to escape the cold, but -6 is ridiculous.  I woke up at 3:00 AM that night to find the temp in my sensitive water areas was 26.  The furnace had quit.  Some investigation revealed only a trickle of propane from a full tank. Theorizing that -6 might discourage propane flow, I put a heating pad on the regulator which got propane going again. In the morning, I had only one small ice block and my trusty hair dryer fixed that.  I spend the next day with my hair dryer in the guts of various rigs, and saw many where the water pump was more or less open to the cold, in some cases I could see daylight!  Some pumps fried trying to pump, others blew fuses, many were OK once the blocks were thawed, and small leaks were everywhere.

Yesterday, while awaiting the next group of volunteers, we discovered that the water on one side of the RV parking was coming out all muddy.  Probably a small leak underground making a puddle that gets siphoned into the line, we will know today when the plumbers come what kind of mess we will have to make.  Not a good first impression for the new team.

So that’s the polar bear thing, now for the orca.

One of the aspects of this build that made me a little uneasy even last year, is the executive director.  He is a micromanager, hypersensitive to any hint of criticism, pompous and long winded, and lacking in sense of humor.  With Don Stover on board and functional, we were isolated from him, for the most part, but Don is now gone.  He and his wife returned, packed up and went to Scottsdale AZ where he will be part of an experimental drug study, his only hope with stage IV pancreatic cancer.  He was thinner and weaker and more disconnected, we are hoping and praying, but for me, with out much conviction.  I’m praying for mercy.

So now Steve and I are trying to work with the exec dir.  One of the difficulties we have been dealing with is that Don was too softhearted to say no to folks who by pass the sign-up system and call him directly.  This means that occasionally a rig will just show up saying Don said they could.  We don’t have room for them, nor enough work for them, so I sent out an email to all those coming in saying that people had to go through the sign up, this under the direction of the head office of HFH.  The exec dir decided that this was changing the affiliate policy without consulting him, dressed me down and demanded I issue a retraction.  Don’s disorganized way of letting people just come was suddenly policy?  I was pretty mad, acted madder than I was, and refused to retract. He then went on to get on Steve for yelling at someone, which I don’t remember happening.  So we fumed and went on regardless, until the next morning when one of the RVers told us that the exec dir had told him he could stay on, even though we are full, and scrambling to find work for them.  This made me mad enough to want to just quit, as it seemed pretty personal.  Obviously my ability to identify and solve problems is a huge threat, and jumping on me for doing it was horrid.  Many of the RVer s hugged and comforted and stitched me back together, saying I was too valuable, and even suggesting a meeting with the Board of Directors.  Steve told him he didn’t have time for this, and if he wanted to take over the parking, fine, he could come on Sundays and meet and greet and deal with it.  Fortunately, the exec dir backed down, I have simmered down and regained my sense of humor, and am determined not to let Don and Elaine down, nor the prospective homeowners.

So, when another of Don’s unknown phone-in rigs turned up, and pulled into a spot empty for a day, we could tell them to leave.  They produced an email from Don saying they could come, but in the email it also said they had to go through the website, which they did not.  It’s now like a sort of demented puppet show, with new characters popping up at odd moments, saying Don said they could come.  I have no idea if Don ever wrote them down anywhere, certainly I never saw it. And we expect there to be more.  Our weather is (usually) pretty good and the parking is free, so we are a magnet.

Steve and I are doing a hard job under difficulties.  The plan to build 9 houses with 16-18 RVers and five supervisors is piddling down to 6 houses, with just Steve as supervisor, but still a full and often bored volunteer force.  For some reason, the ex dir has stopped the electrician working on two of them, which means that in 3 days, we will have little to do. One guy in the last group was telling incoming volunteers not to come, because there wasn’t enough work.  Some of the volunteers seem to think this is some sort of camp for the bored, where there will always be activities planned, but most are seasoned HFH workers and know that there are too many variables beyond our control.

This week the weather will be in the 70’s, lows in the 40’s, which is already much better, and the exec dir has perhaps an inkling of our temper, and suggests we find a volunteer to take the Saturday work over, so we can escape for two days and rest.