Food!

We enjoy having the guys over for meals... Till is really enjoying his taco! And this week we started cooking classes again with the two new German interns. Fun!

 Richard and Jonas have been here for a couple months now. They have settled in a bit to life in PNG and they have learned a bit more English. So now it is time for cooking classes to being! First, we talk about the plan for the class... what we want to make and what do you do first?

 We check out the recipes and figure out what everything is and if we have everything on hand.

 Then the guys get busy chopping...

 I just help with the boring jobs like de-boning chicken and I let them do everything else. :)

 Richard is having fun making dough for rolls.

 Jonas is putting together the chicken enchilada casserole! Yum! I wonder what they will want to make next week in their cooking class....

Batteries...

 These aren't your normal double "A" batteries... these are 100 lbs gel 12V batteries that keep our electricity up and running in our homes through the night.

 Jacob has been learning A LOT about batteries, charging, balancing, proper connections without zapping yourself... and most importantly he must insulate his tools!! :)

 There is a lot of time involved in fixing batteries once they become imbalanced. He must rewire them, charge them, wait a couple hours, test them, wait a couple days, test them etc. etc. And when the batteries are really acting strange he takes pictures of the batteries and sends them to our Tech guys at the NTM training center for advice. They are a HUGE help!

And when all is well with the batteries and no one loses power he is happy! :)

The Post....

Jacob explained the plan to me... raising the new 17 foot post up, holding it in place, lifting the roof up, knocking down the old rotten post and finally putting the new post in place. Of course then you have to lower the roof again.

Everything is ready... ropes, jacks and braces.

The guys even had to make a new pulley because the old one broke. It worked well!

The new post was tied to a rope that went through the pulley and attached to our big truck, the Canter. As Till drove the Canter and Jacob lifted up the post, it was slowly moved into place.

Ethan and Richard were holding the ropes on either side of the post to be sure it didn't go where it wasn't suppose to go. And Pete was looking at the big picture and telling everyone if they needed to do something different.

And its up!

Then the guys had to put the braces in place to hold up the roof while the old post was knocked out and the new post put in its place.

The new post is on the left side... the brace is in the center and the old post is closest to Jacob on the ladder. Now that the post is up and the brace is in place, they just need to kick out the old post.

Crow bars and ropes were used to pull the old log down.

And there it goes!

Now they just had to move the new log in place.

Nice!  A job well done!