Floyd

Sorry I have not blogged in awhile but it has been pretty crazy since the kids arrived. There is about 100 people more from just our crew. It was been quite the job to go around to sites and make sure all the crews are doing what they a sopposed to be doing. The sites I am currently overseeing are 2 decks, a ramp, and a siding job. The siding job I initially tried to slow down because it would not take them 4 days to side 2 12 x 28 sides of the house but they decided to trim all the windows wrong and put the started strip on backwards. We are currenlty on track and the job will finish right on time. I have come to learn that it is very hard to tell people how to construct things then leave. They usually forget what to do 15 minutes after I leave or they figure it out....then construct it......then take it appart because I come back and they did it competely wrong. We have this built into our scedule though so it is completely fine but just hard to work around. It definetly makes for a lot of running around. Other than the constant running im having an absolute blast. Dont worry Mom im good.

Floyd the neighbor that lives on curtis' land is quite the jesus lover around here. His friend has stage 4 cancer and he wanted us to pray with him. He got extremely fired up ran inside the church and started preaching to the kids. It was currently windy and floyd said that satan was in the clouds and we should all rebuke him. Currently I have been rebuking our crappy chicken dinners to get all the fat out of them. Im hoping this works.

Tonight we had a pretty bad storm again. I dont know if there was a tornado north of us but it missed us regardless if their was. We all packed in the basement and had worship down there.....well, i sat in the kitchen and ate apples the whole time. All in all im having a great time and I hope you are all as well.

Goodnight/Goodmorning, hope your getting a lot done at work while your not reading this blog.

Love

Mtn

Interesting Fact: weve gained a couple extra dogs here. One is named Sadie and the other Daisy.

Interesting Fact: Today I kept a chicken wing in my shirt pocket for about 15 periodically pulling it out and eating it....anything to make these kids happy......Sorry Katie i know your embarrassed...but not really.

:)

Why Read this now when you can wait till Monday at work?

I would like to start out by telling all my fellow readers a statement:

AAAAAhemm

Thank you for reading and today I stepped on a nail. Thank you and good night.



















OK im still here. I did step on a nail and it went about a quarter of an inch into my foot. Do not worry I am up to date on Tetnis shots or however you spell it and it was galvanized and barely hurt. I would like to say that the ant bite hurt more but I cannot do this because I cant give much credit to my mortal enemy. I did attack again today right before dinner. Cut foot and all i stirred up the clolony and reeked havoc. I have not yet found the queen but I will soon......dont worry.

Today was fun. It was spent getting supplies gathered for particular jobs. I am the leader on site 3 which happens to be a siding job. I will also be a co leader on our biggest job which is a deck teardown and rebuild. These jobs should be very exciting and I am looking forward to starting them monday.

The last part of today is my favorite. We are about to go eat at Subway and i spent the last hour and a half playing baseball with tellen, jeremy, and ed. We bought a foamish baseball bat and ball combo with our materials money have been having homerun derbys ever since. Fur Ball usually plays centerfield but is crappy at getting balls.

Well thats about all tonight. A football was stolen today and my tape measure. For how grateful the native sopposedly are they have pretty sticky fingers. Im kinda getting sick of all their crap.

Thanks for reading

Love

Matt

Interesting Fact: Yesterday I was told a bed time story. It involved a lumberjack, cotton candy, and reeses peanut butter cups.

Animals

So how has everybody been? Im guessing pretty good. If you are wondering i am doing very good as well. Pretty much the last couple days I have been getting all our prep work done and rifling through my stash of Crystal Light that was given to me by my wonderful grandparents. Thank you very much. My favorite is the fruit punch but the lemonade is a close second. Its a pretty close race so far though. As far as third place...there is none because I only have 2 flavors.

For those of you that may know me, you probably know that once I start watching a show I must watch it until the very end. For those of your that a curious as to why I would be saying this, let me educate you. I have begun to watch the show Dexter and it is awesome. BOOM (That sound was me dropping a knowledge bomb on you) Its the mix between a crime show and Boondock Saints the movie. I am almost done with season 1 and ready and willing to watch the next 3.

Very recently I have seen a lot of different wildlife around here than I am used to is the sconnie nation. Today I had a very interesting encounter with a 5 foot Bull Snake. While we were workin on some Bill of Materials we were tipped off to a snake in our vent. We went out around back to find the parcel tounge stuck between the screen and the window. We summond Curtis from his lair upstair finally after calling him what seemed like 13 times. (this was prolly due to the fact that he was adjusting his hearing aid like he always does. I dont think its his aid though, my guess is the amazon forest of ear hair that he has bulging around it.) He came down and insisted that the snake be killed. He then answered what must of been a very important phone call because he proceeded to talk for 5 minutes while jabbing a 5 foot snake with a shovel. I never know whats gonna happen next in this town. I also have not posted this picture from my trip to Mount Rushmore. I am not quite sure what it is so for now im gonna call it the ugliest animal I have ever seen. He looks like the mixture of a Wooly Mamouth, and Doc from Back to the Future. We have also been terrorizing the girls with the head of our snake, giant 5 inch toads and 3 inch crickets. I kinda feel like im in big world right now. (Thats a Mario reference for those of you that dont know..which is prolly everyone but josh).

One adventure that I had forgot to read about is my first real try with coffee. As you can imagine or probably know, coffee if handled improperly, can not be a good thing. So anyways there I am early in the morning thirsty for some energy and somthing warm. I eyed up the coffee from across the room and moved in for the kill. All of a sudden I had downed a glass with a touch of french vanilla creamer. I had to move in for seconds so I struck fast. By this time I was pretty energized and having a good day. My crew and I moved out to do an estimate at which time we got the truck stuck in mud. So after sitting in a downpour for an hour I came back wet and very cold. Upon entering the kitchen after our fiasco I downed another cup. This one had more creamer and about 2 tablespoons of hot cocoa mix....AAAaAAAnd so did my fourth cup. After this amount of coffee I decided I should be done for the day. Little did I know that in about 4 hours I would be feeling like a wave of tiredness( <---is this a word) and solem moods crashed down upon me with all its fury. At this point I thought about another glass but I decided to have a Crystal Light packet...Which has currently brought me to my current addiction.

Thanks for reading. I just about pooped now and ready to go to bed. Goodnight all my faithfull followers. ACTUALLY...from the sounds of it... you guys read this at work soooooo. Good morning and have a good day.

Love

Matt

Interesting Fact: I saw a pile of horse poop today and contemplated picking it up because im having Canine Butler withdrawls

Interesting Fact: I HAVE JUST IMPLEMENTED A NEW TAG LINE FOR MY BLOG AND IT IS LOCATED BELOW

WHY STAY UP lATE AND READ MY BLOG WHEN YOU CAN DO IT AT WORK.

Tuesday

WARNING: PINE RIDGE RESIDENTS THE UNKNOWN OBJECT THAT YOU ARE SEEING IS KNOWN AS THE SUN. DO NOT BE AFRAID. IT WILL NOT HURT YOU, IT ONLY WILL BURN YOU IF YOU ARE OUTSIDE FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME...WHICH YOU PROBABLY WILL BE BECAUSE YOUR LOOKING AT THE SUN...WHICH WE HAVE NOT SEEN IN 6 DAYS. THANK YOU.

So if you didnt understand the previous warning message I am happy to tell you that today was sunny all day and we had a high of 82 degrees. Tommorrow is forecasted to thunderstorm all day but lets not get to carried away here. Today is beautiful no matter what tommorrow brings. There was one mishap that happened today however. If you have been following my past posts you would know that the war between Matt Natzke and the Fire Ants was heavily in my favor at a casualty ratio of 0 to 1543843. Well today the ants struck and they struck hard. While watching them kill a cricket (Which is like 3 inches big..They have HUGE Crickets over here) and eat a french fry (Which was provided by myself) a roge ant treked his way up my boot and took a snack break right on my ankle. It stung pretty good and this act of treason upon my peace treaty of fries led to an annihilation of a couple hundred more ants. For those of you keeping track this moved the death ratio to 1544239 Ants to .000001 Matt Natzke.

Today I was out all day taking measurements for jobs and getting information from families for bios we like to type up for the students when they arrive. I did get a little burnt today (because it was sunny) but do not fear mother I did wear sun tan lotion. ( I was the only 1) We are making very good process on projects and should be in good shape for when the students arrive sunday.

Yesterday was also eventful by the fact that we got our Ford F150 stuck in the mud going to a jobsite. The soil out here is none like anything I have seen in wisconsin. The soil here is very silty and contains a lot of clay. The locals call it Gumbo. It is very hard to drive in but regardless it took us abour 1 hour in a constant downpour to get our truck out. We were finally successful upon getting a tow by a nearby resident.

I dont know if you know this but its sunny today.

Other than that not much is new. Final preperations are getting put in place and please keep hoping and praying everything goes somewhat smoothly.

Thanks again sorry for no recent posts but I have been a little busy here around camp.

Love

Matt

Interesting Fact: The dog we call jack is actually named Fur Ball. Hes the compounds group dog around here. I havnt quite decided whether to call him Furball, Jack or I was thinking about just calling him leanord.

Interesting Fact: Upon telling a women named Luciel what we were doing to her house. She grabbed my face and told me she loved me. Then she said she wanted me to meat her good looking daughters.....HAha Sorry Katie.

Free Day

This will probably be short because I am pretty tired and we didnt do much today. Today was more taxing than work days maybe because I was a bit tired going into it or maybe because of all the travel. Today was our free day and for our free day we went to Hot Springs to swim in the Hot Springs. Upon getting there we decided that 44 was to cold to go swimming so we headed up to go see Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monument. I thought that Rushmore was pretty cool but it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. When Crazy Horse is finished it will be amazing. About 3 times the size of Rushmore and a lot more intricate Crazy Horse will be a sight to see.

I would also like to post that I completely neglected my interesting fact yesterday so today you will get a double dose.

Interesting Fact 1: Today it rained all over South Dakota making it a solid streak of everyday weve been here. If I find one native doing a rain dance im takin him out Jack Bauer style.

Interesting Fact 2: A Snail can sleep for 3 years.

(Warning: If you have a friend that is a snail and he says wake me up in 15 minutes DO NOT forget to wake him up)

Love

Matt

Rain

ok ladies and germs. Curtis our main contact said it hardly rains in South Dakota.....it has rained everyday weve been here including the little gem of a storm we had 2 nights ago. There was lightning every second and we had 60 mphwinds. On top of that one of our trailor windows blew in and water was everywhere. Now our trailor smells like mold but it could be that thats where all the guys are sleeping. There is somthing unsettling about laying in a bed, in a trailor, that is made with aluminum paneling when you see lightning every second. The other great aspect of the storm is that Curtis is deaf in one ear so we didnt even know if he woke up to find out if a tornado was coming. He did and we were all right. Its hard to be by Curtis because if you say his name he just looks around until he finds a face where he thinks the noise came from.

Today I found a stash of Nutter Butters. They were Stephs.. I cant eat any.

The past days we have been networking around town and have found some good jobs to do while the students are here. Thats about all I have to say about that.

Its getting easier to go to the bathroom here. We dont have locks on the restrooms and there is no door on the stalls. Therefore if your going to the restroom you have to pray the hail mary that no one enters the restroom. Its a bit awkward but im pretty much use to it now. I dont know how itll work when there is 96 kids here tho.

Today I started and finished throwing up drywall and will be hopefully letting the worship people paint it on sunday. Tommorrow is our free day and I think were headed up to Hot Springs to go swiming in hot springs.... Should be fun even though it will prolly be cloudy. When I was in training week I was told that it never rains on Next Step. Upon getting to South Dakota I was told by Curtis it never rains in Pine Ridge. Which makes perfect sense as to why it has rained everyday that weve been here. REDICULOUS.

I was told by my gf to put up more pictures and while i dont have any good ones ill throw some up because I like to make her happy so I will descide them. I dont know which order they load so I will describe then in no particular order. The boy is named Legand and his middle name is Tell and I have no clue what his last name is but here he is at the age of 6 defying gravity. Showing off for the ladies or eing an idiot here he is in all his glory. (Not Pictured is the blue power ranger that he always carries in his pocket) The next are 2 pictures from the butte we climbed. (Dont worry mom they werent high) I also call them Butts instead of buttes because it adds a little more excitment to my day. (excitment is hard to come by round here). The one with the van in the drive between 2 trailors a picture I took i thoguht looked cool. Legends (aka Tellen) trailor is the one on the right of this picture. The last two are the basecamp for our summer. The long white building is the chapel and the small tan building to the right of that is where i will be stayin come sunday. I like to call it the mansion because its so small. The big blue building is where we eat and where the kids will stay. I call it big blue. Last is a picture of a dog that I think is half wolf. I call him Wolfy. He does not like carrots but does not seem to mind potato wedges. Thats pretty much it, all the resst are housing trailors and machine shops. So thats pretty much it. Not to exciting but South Dakota really isnt. except for the badlands we went through last night. Pretty sweet look it up.

Thanks again for reading

Love

Matt

Day Drei

For those of you that dont know...Drei is german for 3.

Waaaaaaasssssssaaaaap

Ok so the third day is come and nearly gone and today was exauhsting. The main things we did today is go around to sites and look at projects, go to Gordon NE (Colin Fouts grandparents hometown) and check out the nearest place for materials, and then bust out concrete for shower drains. The ladder sucked big time but it was a great workout which I enjoy. It was also great that my crew members kept fading in and out of the project due to exhaustion. Other than that nothing has happened today. Us construction guys will sit down with Ed(Construction guru) and go over what projects we want and the list of materials.

The following pictures are 3 that I have taken so far more are to come. The first is the view from where I am working and were I will be staying when the kids are around. Pretty cool. The next is a very romatic picture of a sunset that I took over our trailor. For those of you that know the romance of trailors this should be pretty cool. The thrid is a picture of about a third of the fireant colony that i decided to fight. Half wound up on my shoes but there was no bites. I wonthe fight. Matt 0 casualties. Ants 1543843.

So far the week is going good. We have been working real hard but that should allow us to have a prety mellow week next week which will allow us to go to the resivoir and swim and maybe Mount Rushmore.

Last but not least I saw the Wounded Knee Massacre sight today when we were out looking at potential projects. It was pretty intense to see mass graves. For those of you that dont know wounded knee was a battle after Custers last stand in Sturgis. The infantry that didnt die set up many gattling guns on a hill and killed about 300 natives. sad. Women, Warriors, and Children.

It has been writing today sorry it wasnt my best effort but tommorrow will be better.

Love ya'll enjoy the pics.

Matt

Interesting Fact: Tallen name is actually Legand Tell (tell being his middle name, idk his last) and the dog is not named Jake it is Jack ( No ticks popped today it was sad)

Day Dos

Alrighty people today was boring and interesting at the same time. Today we went out with our main contact Curtis and looked at some projects we could do. So far Curtis wants us to help people that dont need help or are his friends it seems like. This is not ok. Curtis is looking very hard for a Mr. Natzke butt whoopin and hes about to find one. After that my next task was to go over to the neighbors yard and cut her long grass so her kids could play in the front yard without being bitten by rattlesnakes in the long grass. I was very happy to accept this task because of the fact that it would be awesome to hit a rattlesnake with a riding lawnmower. Upon approaching the house I was yelled at by a women inside. She thought I was someone else and was happy for my assistance. I was happy to talk to her boyfriend because SHE was about 4 pills down on the day of Hydrocodon or whatever it is. Anyways she was impossible to comprehened and even worse after I got the mower and began to work. After that and putting in 5 windows I introduced to 2 neighbor kids called Lenny and Tallen. Lenny likes to go on people computers and watch music videos with gummy bears in it, Lady Gaga, Toy Story 3 clips and some weird Micheal Jackson stuff. Currently as Im typing this Tallen rubbed his Cheeto fingers on my back and chased Lenny around the room. Tommorrow will be better with finding projects as Ed or construction guru is heard and well freelance a little for needed help. I miss you all but its time to go. Jake is what we named our stray and he poped another tick today. All is good.

Love

Matt

Interesting Fact: Lenny is currently hugging me..Kinda weird...at least he doesnt have Cheeto fingers

First Day of Pine Ridge and Travel and Training Week

First I would like to say thank you to everyone for reading my blog. This is going to be very convinient for be because I will not have to send out emails and make phone calls on a daily basis. If you would like to contact me I have cell reception (Funny how im the only one with verizon and i'm the only one with reception...guess verizons map is bigger...AT&T you suck) but posting on this blog will also work on a daily basis. Thanks again and I look forward to keeping you all updated about my current situations....On to the fun stuff.
Training week was very fun. Enough said.
Ok for real it was fun and I had a great time getting to learn about my fellow group members. It was a lot of practicing worship which was a very long and time consuming process. It is all for the greater good however which makes it all worth it. Various construction meetings kept us busy and we had good food all week. The final night we all had communion (Body and Blood of Christ) and each had a chance to pray within our groups. Everyone was very thoughtful with their closing prayers and I asked god why some of his body was still stuck in my teeth.
This is a story of 10 people......who live in a trailor....in Pine Ridge....ok its not exciting. Today the 7th of June is the first complete day of our Pine Ridge, South Dakota trip. Yesterday my 9 other group members and myself moved into a trailor that houses 11 people. The trailor is nice and allows us a lot of comfort that what is normal here in Pine Ridge. Our main contact out here is named Curtis and he is hooking us up with all jobs and location for student worship and housing. Yesterday we traveled from Madison to Pine Ridge and it took us about 13 hours which actually seemed like a somewhat of a short drive...except for the time one driver constantly hit the rumble strip. Anyways upon our arrival we were met by our trailor neighbor named Floyd. Hes a Lacota and told us the story of the land. He is in no way related to Floyd Landis however, his pants may have been as tigt as biking shorts. Curtis then told us about Pine Ridge and the people that live here. Its a long story but I will try and tell you as much info as I can. Pine Ridge has been the sight of many conflicts between the US government and the Lacota Indians. If you dont know the res (reservation as they call it) is located 80 miles south of Rapid City, 7 miles west of Wounded Knee (sight of Chief Big Foots epic battle) and just south of the Badlands. Long ago when the whites were fighting the natives Crazy horse would kill whites and run ride to the badlands through a gully which was the only entrance. For this reason the whites were never able to catch Crazy Horse. He later surrendered because of the fact that it was becoming winter and his men had no food to live off of. Later in prison he was killed via stab wound. Whites say he was trying to escape. Natives say he was murdered. Next week is the crazy horse ride in which natives ride 60 miles horseback from the prison he was killed to the fair grounds in Pine Ridge. Ok ..so.. getting to the present. Pine Ridge is a very poor town of around 3000. A couple facts just to get the point accross is that the high school grad rate is 25%, The unemployment rate is 75%, Most kids have one child before the age of 17, and 80% of the people here have a addiction and serious problems with alcohol and drugs which makes itself quit evident through the many people passed out or lying beside the road and outside of bars. Curtis told us that the reason for the children before 17 is that the men of the city have lost their warrior spirit. They say this is due to the white man and different things. The fathers of houses abuse and assault their kids therefore they run away and find "love" with male teens. They then get pregnant and the vicious cycle starts again. Another interesting fact is that all people of Pine Ridge are classified as prisoners of war. This is because there was almost a civil war between the people here and the US government. The people of PR were then held by US military inside the confounds of the res. Upon seeign the town it is apparent our help is needed for these people and we are all willing to do anything within our safe grasp to do so.
Today we spent all day getting the location ready for the kids. This mean I was located on a zero radius cub cadet lawn mower all day. Riding lawnmowers like that are to cool for words. We moved various objects and got the pews back in the chapel for worship upon the kids arrival. It was a very succesful day and I look forward to many more. In closing I would like to say I miss you all and I look forward to hearing from you in the future.

God Bless,

Matt

Interesting Fact: There is a dog here that has about 12 ticks on him... Half are the size of nickels