Up To Speed As Of 11/27/07

Bringing you up to speed, we'll start with the front stairs. The pour went well, but then it began to drizzle. Since we don't yet have any gutters up, rain began to erode the poured concrete.

Front Stairs After Concrete Pour

I zoomed into town to find some Visqueen. Of course, this is something no one here has heard of.

At Villa's Supply, I finally found a roll of black plastic for $30BZ, which we put to good use protecting the stairs.

Plastic Sheeting Protecting the Stairs

Plastic Sheeting Protecting the Stairs

All Stretched Out

After the rain quit, I carefully retrieved the plastic, folded it and saved it for some other use. It's too expensive down here to not do that.

I also checked at "The Store That Has It All - Cinty's" - to see if they had Visqueen or disposable drop-cloth plastic, you know, the almost Saran-Wrap like plastic that works for one or two uses and then you pitch it. He knew what I was talking about, but didn't have any. He did write it down to see if he could get it in the future.

Now we move to the back of the lot, or the canalside. Here's a view from the front porch of the activity going on constructing the fence back there. The fence will do several things - hinder bad guys trying to get in, keep our dog or dogs (which we don't have yet, but are looking) in the yard, keep the crocs out and from having the dogs as a quick snack.

Canalside Fence Construction

One of the things we wanted to do was to have some dramatic lighting back by the canal. It would look cool at night, and if we ever get to have boats back there, would really look snazzy coming in to a nicely lit boat slip at night (ah dreams...).

To that end, we had Isidoro and his crew prep for lights by including some tubing to run wiring through. It's called "polyducto" - not sure if that's a brand name or what, anyway, that's what it's called.

Running the Polyducto Along the Fence

Running the Polyducto Along the Fence

Each Post (10 of 'em)

 Will Have a Light

Showing the Post Rebar and Polyducto

Showing the Post Rebar and Polyducto

Here's the inside of the house prior to the walls going up inside. Man, does it look different from this now (you'll just have to wait till I get the pics posted).

Bare Bones

"The Machine" as the workers call it, makes life much easier for them on a large pour. Otherwise, it's out in the street hand-mixing concrete. This one belongs to Franz. And it works pretty good except when its broken - which is once in a while. That's not unusual down here. Stuff breaks - a lot by our standards, but it's just part of living in paradise.

The Machine

Some more views of the canalside fence going up. It'll have a nice scalloped shape to it in a few days. You'll see, trust me.

Gate Opening

Getting ready to Pour the columns

The guys hard at work placing the blocks and filling them with concrete.

Canalside Fence Taking Shape

Canalside Fence Taking Shape

And just to show you that Blue and Midas have taken things in stride, here's a shot of them supervising the construction. This shot was in the duplex we were in for November. We've since moved again to Jim and Melanie's house (our third place since we've been in Belize!).

A Couple of Hard Workers