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06 January, 2011

Road and Garden Improvements

Normally, you expect to read 'house and garden' or something like that. Not here. No sir.

There's never a dull moment around this place. We had another cave-in on the road in front of our place about a week or so ago. I missed the opportunity to take a photo of it with a tree limb with green leaves that someone stuck in the hole as a warning. Denis across the road adorned it with a plastic soda bottle, thinking that would probably reflect headlights better.

I phoned it in to Department of Works. Long-time readers may remember the last time this happened, I called them and they responded in an hour and repaired the cave-in. Well, not this time. We waited and we waited. Finally, Mr. Quinto (the retired Belize Ambassador to Taiwan) sent one of his guys and a back hoe down to fill it. He also provided the rocks to fill the hole.
Fixing the Cave-In
 BTW, the hole ended up about 3 or 4 feet across and almost 5 feet deep. Even though the actual hole in the road was only about a foot across.
Long View of the Project
Fortunately, no one fell in the hole or drove into it. Although it might have been interesting if some of the nightlife drove into the hole. Probably would have made more dramatic photos.

So, now we come to the garden improvement bit.

Months ago, I had my Godson, Isaiel, make up several metal hose hangers for me. I promptly installed one, then a few months later installed another, and this morning, I installed a third.
A New Hose Hanger
There's still two to go. You can't rush these things, y'know. I guess the rule till now has been to wait till the plastic hose hanger decays in the sunlight and the hose falls down. Hoses for the most part, seem to be holding up well in the bright sunlight. Just the hangers seem to be susceptible.

Cody and I also went through my stack of lumber and PVC pipe parts. I gave him probably half the lumber as I'll probably never have a use for all of it.
Neat and Tidy Wood Rack
It's nice having that area organized finally. It's just been an area that collected stuff as the place was being built, so it kind of grew up messy. Not now. It's pristine, sort of. But, I digress. This blog stuff is interfering with pool-time. See ya.

Cheers

6 comments:

Richard Lawry said...

You are right, there is never a dull moment in Belize, but I think that dull moments are highly overrated.

An Arkies Musings

Dave Rider said...

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the comment. I agree. BTW, I was perusing your blog (link is in the comment above). Nice. Mena looks like a nice sleepy town. You have a town square there? My dad used to have a house in Bull Shoals, AR, and Harrison had a very picturesque town square that I always remembered.

A friend of mine, Dennis, from Canada needs to look at your blog. He's nuts about old cars too. That tall coupe in your blog would light his fire.

Cheers,
Dave

Jon said...

Dave,
My wife and I will be in Corozal this coming weekend. I have been looking at your PWS for the past two months to get in the mood for some good weather. I registered your GPS coordinates in my handheld and would like to know if it would be OK to stop by and introduce ourselves?
Jon Peabody (jonpbd (at) gmail (dot)com)

Dave Rider said...

Hi Jon,

Your comment gave me a bit of a chuckle. Yours is by far the most 'techie' posting that I think I've gotten here on the blog. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as they used to say on Seinfeld.

I'm somewhat of a techie type myself. Sure, it'd be fine to visit. I'll email you our contact info.

Hope you've found the PWS (Personal Weather Station - for those untechies out there) of value.

Cheers,
Dave

Lion Lady said...

D & D: I'm just a little confused about Belize's PW down there ...enlighten me.
You find a one foot hole in front of your place (on the road), and Belize's Public Works (PW) comes and digs up a 3 or 4 foot hole that's five feet deep....and you supply the filler for 3'X4'X5' hole....sound like you got the short end of the stick? Does the PW top the hole with a material that cars can drove over it (asphalt) or do you supply that too? Strange

Dave Rider said...

Hi Jeanette,

No, no, you misunderstood me. The one-foot hole was just what was visible from the road surface. Underneath, it was five-feet deep and around five or six wide.
Dept. of Works never did show up. A private citizen of some means provided the back hoe and rubble to fill the hole.
Even though it might look it, this is an unpaved road. Marl sets up almost like concrete, till it gets wet, then it turns to a gluey, sticky but slick mess.
In this case, the hole was pretty much filled with rubble and that's it. No topping with anything. In fact, the hole is still about six or seven inches deep, but a vast improvement over the cavern that we did have.
But that's how things normally are here. A one-hour response for just about anything is unheard of. Hey, there was probably bigger holes to fill in than ours for sure.
You definitely have to adapt to be successful in living here. This is one of those adaptations.

Cheers,
Dave