Buddy Miles Said It Best

our neighborhood has been going through some changes.

'Well, my mind's been going through them changes'

- Them Changes, Buddy Miles, 1970

You know, beyond my mind, changes that I haven't written about lately.

Things in the neighborhood are changing, and, actually have been changing, but I haven't written about some of them.

For instance, next door to us, is a new house that is being built out of wire mesh and Styrofoam. It'll be coated with roughly two inches of concrete (probably sprayed and troweled) on both sides, including the roof.

Dr. Mike and Shelly's House

This is relatively new stuff, at least here in Corozal. It's made by a Mexican company, Qualypanel, (http://www.covintec.com/). Their website has several videos that show aspects of the construction process.

The initial bit of construction, such as the walls, went really fast. I'm not sure what has slowed things down now, but it does seem to be taking an inordinately long period of time to finish.

Dr. Mike Parrish is a Chiropractor from the US, and has set up his practice here in Corozal (http://www.doctorparrish.com/). I haven't visited his office yet, but my neck is saying that maybe I should. I run into Shelly, his wife, now and then while we're walking dogs. Seem like nice folks.

We're watching the construction of their place with interest. If it works out, we might want to put an upstairs on our pool house and that would be ideal - saving weight and, hopefully, time as well. We'll keep you tuned in on that bit.

The other new house around here is another Mennonite house. This one is going up just south of the Northern Highway (which has been renamed the Phillip P. Goldson Highway - although no one calls it that) on what we call Scruffy Road. No idea what the actual name of the road is.

Keith and Sheena's House

I stopped by the other morning while walking the doggies and checked with a couple of the workers there. The place is owned by Keith and Sheena. I haven't met them yet, but I'm sure that will happen soon.

Of course, the other new one, almost across the street from us is the house that Mae and Craig built. It's a nice concrete place  with lots of potential. It's for sale too. It also has a really cool gate. I'll see if I can remember to get a photo of the house and gate tomorrow.

Let's see, what else? Doggies are fine. We're still walking 4 miles a day, and sweating up a storm with that as well. Cats are fine. Nelson is becoming a fine young man. In fact, he delights in helping around the house.

Nelson Helping Make the Bed

We've got to install a kitty door. He's driving us nuts wanting in or out at night. He's discovered that he can get up on the back of a chair on the front porch and meow at us to be let back in. Of course, that puts him about two inches away from our ears when we're in bed. Hard to ignore him then.

And the other thing we've got happening is our compost bin, which is going great guns. As you can see below, it produces some great compost and so quick too. Inside of two weeks from first adding it to the pile on the left. Watering and turning for a couple of days or so, then toss it over the wall to the next bin. More watering and turning, then finally over the next wall, where it's turned a couple more times.

Our Compost Bin In Action

Then it's run through the sieve (the wood and wire screen thing above) into the wheelbarrow and then out to the various planter beds. The plants just love it.

Speaking of plants, I'll get a few shots of Dianna's garden and include later on. Stuff is growing very well in the planter boxes. We'll be eating good soon.

That's it for now. I've got to add some chlorine tabs to the pool and get stuff ready for happy hour this afternoon.

Cheers,

A Little Watah Here, A Little Watah There

When we first built the place, we put a single faucet on the back-side of the house. That was adequate for several years. But, now that we've added planter boxes and a compost bin, our needs have changed significantly. Which change necessitates digging holes, finding the old pipes, and figuring out just how we're going to route stuff to accomplish what I'm seeing in my mind's eye.

For starters, I had Cody dig out the piping for the existing faucet. Naturally, it's buried directly under a 3-inch drain pipe we installed later - after we had our roof gutters installed.

Work is Just Starting

As you can see below, it's a bit of a tight fit. One thing that did help (seems like it does with each project too) is that I take photos of just about every phase of a project. Makes it easy then to go back when change is mandated and figure out, more or less, just what we had done in the first place.

Bit of a Tight Space to Work In

I decided to cut the water line right under the drain pipe. There was enough room to put an elbow there and reroute everything without digging up more than necessary.

I wanted to run a new line from there over to the new compost bin so we could have a faucet to take care of that area and the whole yard by the street. This meant that we had to run the line under the sidewalk (You can see that at the top of the photo below).

If this was in the states, making a 'water-jet' would be easy. Just go to the hardware store and buy a couple of hose threaded slip fittings (male and female) for an old length of PVC pipe. Glue it together and hook it up to a hose and blast away. Well, unfortunately, those fittings aren't available here.

Improvise. I found a piece of PVC electrical conduit that was just perfectly sized to fit the diameter of the hose I had in mind. I cut one end off the hose, slid the length of hose through the conduit and attached a new hose fitting to replace the one I had cut off. I now had a rigid water-jet to blast a tunnel under the sidewalk. Perfect. After attaching the water-jet assembly to a hose and turning on the water, it took about five minutes to bore a pipe-sized tunnel under the sidewalk. No big deal at all.

Running Another Line To the Compost Bin

Then, it just became a matter of gluing all the bits together, and before burying it all, turning on the water to see if anything leaked - which nothing did, so we were good to go.

Pretty Much All Hooked Up - Ready to Bury

Here's another view of the completed assembly showing the pipe running under the sidewalk. I haven't removed the old hose rack and hose yet. The rack will be repositioned by the double faucet, bolted to the steel post right there.

Faucet Re-routed From Wall to Garden

We're looking at the business end with the double faucet ready to go. One spigot for the watering wand curly hose and the other for the odd filling up buckets and washing hands and tools. Handy, eh?

Two Faucets Now

Cody's filling in the trenches he had dug for the piping. The pipe runs for now over to the corner of the compost bin pad, where I capped it off till Carlos gets done building the bin walls. Then I'll add some more piping, run a length up, install a faucet and my last hose rack and it'll be a done deal.

New Faucet Will Go In the Corner

Dianna had a good idea about a drain field for the front of the compost bin. We had Cody dig a trench about a foot deep and wide, and then fill it with gravel. Hopefully it'll work as we imagine it will.

Seeing How Everything Fits

Carlos starting the compost bin walls. It's going as high as the terra cotta fence in the background.

Carlos Hard At Work

A couple more hours and there's some real progress that has been made.

It's Going Up

After completing the two courses of each wall, Carlos cleaned up for the day. Next Friday he'll form up the top of each wall and cast a cap with rebar to give some rigidity to each wall. Then, it's parging the walls inside and out, and painting the outside walls and the project is done.

Just A Simple Veggie Patch

Here's an update on our planter boxes.

I've mentioned them in earlier posts. You can see those posts at (http://winjama.blogspot.com/search/label/Planter%20Tables). I called them 'planter tables' then.

So, here they are pretty much done. All that remains is to finish filling them with a nice mix of red or black dirt - always depending on what's available. Right now, it's red dirt. We mix that, more or less 2:1, two buckets dirt to one bucket wood chips.

All Four - Ready to Fill

Here's the first one, filled to the rim. I still have some stuff to do. Like re-routing a water faucet so that there's a handy spigot right there.

First Box Filled

This view just shows the planter box legs.

Showing the Structure

I thought someone was watching us. Sure enough Secret has a new cool spot to hang out in. This was originally discovered by Cindy, but Secret appears to have usurped the shady space.

A New Hidey-Hole

Three of the boxes are about one-foot deep - plenty for most veggie needs. This one, on the other hand, is about twice that depth and is more suited to crops requiring more depth for their roots.

One Deep One - For Root Crops

This photo shows the interior detail. I painted the inside of each box with UGL DRYLOK Basement/Masonry Waterproofer. I've used it before, here and in the States. It does a great job, as long as you don't expect miracles. The reason we put in on is since we were going to paint the outsides, we felt that we needed to waterproof the insides so that the paint would stick to the outsides.

I had part of a gallon of latex Drylok, so used that as far as it went. Then, went to Villa's and got a gallon of Oil-based Drylok. The application was about the same for both products.

You'll notice the little grey squares inside the box. That's nylon screen fabric that I've put over the drain holes in each box. To help (I hope) keep the dirt from escaping from the boxes.

Showing Water-Proofing Paint and Screens

I'm sneaking in a small but related project here. It's a compost bin and a pad for a future cistern. We're going to pour the pad as a single unit for ease. Then, we'll add walls to make the separate bins for the compost area.

Compost Bin & Cistern Pad - Soon Come

And finally, here's Dianna, looking pretty proud of her new garden area. She's taking a break working with Cody to fill the boxes and making sure the mix of dirt and wood chips is right.

I know what she's thinking too. It's time for a shower, some lunch, and then it's... Pool Time!

Dianna Taking A Break During Filling