Winjama: First Post of the New Year!

It seems to me that for the first post for the year to the blog that I should be writing something meaningful, something weighty, something pithy, something erudite, something...

Ok, ok. Enough of that crap. I don't have anything "heavy" to talk about. I am feeling pretty good about the new year however. It hasn't been around long enough yet to get screwed up. I do have some pictures of our guest house and the progress they've been making.

For example, how about the lintel over the kitchen window? They've done the same for the two small windows in the utility room, bathroom and bedrooms. So, progress is coming along. I think I mentioned it yesterday, that by the end of next week, they may be ready to cast the roof. Now that'd be progress!

Kitchen Window Lintle Inside

Kitchen Window Lintle Outside

Most of the electrical outlets and switches have been put in place. Here's Esidoro cutting one of the last outlet boxes in the kitchen - probably for the microwave.

Esidoro Making a Dense Cloud

Cleaning Up Spilled Concrete

One of the things I was adamant about was that there should be no mess on the wood deck from their construction. They've actually done pretty good at keeping it clean. Each day, their young worker is detailed (one of the sh** jobs, I'm sure) to clean it up. You can see him doing just that above.

Now that we're in the dry season, watering plants becomes necessary. Actually, we had to do it even in the rainy season (well, Cody actually had to do it). We call it the "rainy season". It's more properly the "hurricane season" as we don't get all that much rain, on average, in any season.

Dianna Taking A Turn With the Hose

It seems strange, but we've been without Cody since Christmas Eve. That and Boxing Day, two official holidays, the weekend, and Cody taking his one week annual vacation, split by New Year's Day, another holiday. A good bit of time off. We're looking forward to his return on Monday.

Since we hired him on Christmas Day year before last, he was entitled to a week's vacation after completing a year with us. Time flies.

One of the many plants that Dianna was watering is the coleus below. Up north, y'all know it as a house plant. Down here, it's practically a weed. There's a ton of plants around here that grow big and fast that only struggle in pots up north.

Our Garden Coleus

On paydays, Jose, the Sandwich Man, comes by to collect on the bills from all the workers around the area. He runs Corozal's equivalent of the sandwich wagon, the roach coach, ptomaine express, whatever you want to call it. What Jose does is, he brings sandwiches and patties (spicy, ground beef in a folded-over fried totilla) and juice drinks in plastic baggies, to all the workers at construction sites around the area. It's all pretty good too. He carries the lot in one or two five-gallon pales on his scooter.

Yesterday was his day to collect what was owed. On his stop here to collect from our workers, he had his young son with him. Always an opportunist, they took time to fish in our canal boat slip cutout. Jose was teaching his son how to cast a weighted line (none of the locals use poles or reels). The kid was pretty good too. He was routinely making 25-30 foot casts - with accuracy!

Jose, the Sandwich Man and His Son Fishing

Our Crew Watching Jose

Now, you can tell where I was shooting the action. I was in one of the bedrooms before the wall had gone up way high. As I was watching, I thought, "This would be an ideal place for a window. What a view." On our plan, we had no window on that wall. We do now. I called Bob and told him I wanted one in there. The timing was perfect as they would be ready to block it in today. So, one of our bedrooms in the guest house now has two windows.

This afternoon, I supervised Miss Blue as she was outside munching on grass for another full-body experience, as cats do. I looked up to see Cindy and Secret watching her. They're really good with her too. They've kept her from going out of the yard before when she's snuck (is that a word?) out with no escort. Blue's not afraid of them at all.