Parking Palapa Gets a New Top

The thatch on the parking palapa came to its end a few days ago. We had the roof restored with 'zinc' as they call it, sheet metal by any other name would smell as sweet, or something like that.

Just Getting Started

Even though the thatch was beginning to show its age, developing more holes everytime we had a heavy rain, taking it down was still not an easy task. The way the thatch is wrapped around the horizontal stick part of the frame meant that each frond had to be pulled apart individually.

It Doesn't Go As Fast As You Think

Now we're beginning to see the skeleton. Quite an impressive structure. We'll be keeping that underneath the zinc.

Starting Framing For Screws

And, just like that, the thatch is all gone. Now they're putting up board framing so there is something to screw the zinc into, and to even up the roof framing so that it looks smooth and the zinc panels don't look wavy from the ground.

First Piece of Zinc Going Up

I just made it out of the house in time to catch the first panel of zinc going up. Already looks impressive, eh?

Close to Being Done

Here it is, almost all done, complete with ridge caps, which are shaped strips of zinc designed to fit over the ridges and help provide a water-resistant roof.

Underside View

This is what it looks like from underneath. Really shows off the original structure. I like the way it looks.

Tricky Corner

This corner of the palapa always was tricky. We had to cut back the thatch here because the corner of the concrete house was a bit close. Endher trimmed back the zinc roofing to allow for that as well, in order to keep rain from running down the house wall. He said a bit of the gutter will be run around there to help with drainage.

Endher Fitting Gutter Sections

 Yesterday was a full day for the crew. Fitting gutter sections, digging trenches and putting it all together. It sure looks good as the end result.

Chillin'

Sidewalk superintendent taking in the view of the workplace.

Digging Trench for Floor Drain

Here's the trench for the floor drain going in. This will make number four for the floor drains along the driveway. Combined with the flow from the gate area French drain, the Mennonite house, parking palapa, the floor drains, and the new house gutters, there's a large volume of water shooting out of the pipe into the canal during and shortly after a rainfall.

3" Drain Everything Connects To

Here's the three-inch drainpipe that runs pretty much the length of the property (it's roughly 250 or so feet long.

One Side Done

The gutter (eves-troughs to those of you used to calling them that) is in place on the north side. Soon to become blue like the rest. The structure is really looking nice.

Fitting Clamps for Downspout

Endher fastening the downspouts to the brackets. I really like the metal brackets they use. I hadn't seen them before Endher and the boys used them. It keeps the pipe off the wall surface and facilitates painting too.

Positioning Floor Drain

The four-inch floor drain going in. A two-inch drain would work, except the metal top is exceedingly thin and wrinkles up at the drop of a hat. the metal on the 4" drain is about 1/4" thick so it's extremely durable.

View From Mennonite House

A much cleaner view now from the upper landing of the Mennonite house.

Making It All Pretty

Touching up the final coat of blue on the gutters.

View As You Approach

This view is as you approach the palapa on the driveway. Looks very nice. All that's left now, is for the crew to install a shelter for my bike so that I can come and go easily and the bike is somewhat protected from the elements.

Little Bits and Pieces

I guess this is my usual Friday routine, a virtual grab-bag of stuff - small projects that are in progress or completed and that seem to get attention drawn to them in time for the weekend or, at least Friday.

Again, I'm starting off with Dianna painting her trellises. This time it's the one in the raised bed. And she talked me into putting up our patio umbrella for shade.

The Artist At Work

The other trellises (trelli?) - on the side of the well house, Between the front stairs and the breezeway, and between the back stairs and the generator room.

Well House Trellis

Front Stairs Trellis

Back Stairs Trellis

Raised Bed Trellis

Say, speaking of the generator room, its contents... Our 5.6 Kw generator is up and functioning. I had to get a new battery for it. Anyway, for the hurricane season, I've got it on a weekly test schedule. Every Wednesday, I fire it up. Tomorrow, we're going to go over all the circuit breakers to see just what the load is and how we can best keep the place operating under generator power. Should be fun. The generator room works great. It holds down the noise and the smell and it's secure.

And another electrical item - the front gate... WORKS! Yea!!! After several months of wishing and hoping, Isaiel finally got all the bits and bobs welded to it, and by golly, it works. Pretty fancy. It came complete with two remots and a hard-wired switch in the kitchen. I have two more remotes on order. One for Cody and one for guests when we have them. Really beats getting out of the rig in the rain and opening/closing the gate.

Our other project that is mostly done for now is the gutters. As you can see below, we have gutters around all four sides of the house and they match the roof color. Then the downspouts (3" PVC Pipe), I'm in the process of painting to match the house colors. Where it's wood, I'll paint them a light brown.

Gutters and Downspouts

Downspouts

For the gutter on the back side of the house, I'll be putting in two 600 gal. Rotoplas plastic cisterns to capture the rainfall. the overflow from the first will fill the second. Then it's overflow will tie in to the French drain and go to the canal. I'll have a pump motor and a shutoff valve, so that if we loose well water, a simple flip of the valve, turn on the pump, and we'll still have water going through the RO system and the water softener. I have to build a concrete stand first for the cisterns to sit on, so they don't get punctured by rocks, etc. Oh, and buy the cisterns, too.

Speaking of draining to the canal, here's a shot of the 200+ foot drain pipe emptying to the canal. It doesn't look like much here, but naturally, before I got my camera and came back to shoot, it was going like gangbusters, shooting out about 2 1/2 feet into the canal, and about 2/3 of the pipe full of water. Wow! All that water won't be flooding our place no mo!

Water Draining to the Canal

Other stuff going on... Cody constructed another garden area with concrete curbing to route cars around the palapa, as well as putting a curb around three sides of the palapa to corral the gravel inside.

Cody Filling the New Planter Area

Vehicles Properly Bedded Down

Naturally, with the rainy season or hurricane season (samo samo), the weeds start growing with a vengence. Here's Cody mowing (or as it's called - "chopping") them down with his trusty machete. At first glimpse, it seems really hard to mow this way. But, it's really efficient and fast. And we don't have to buy a mower... yet.

Cody Chopping the Weeds

After the last rainfall during the week, and believe me, it rains. Heavy and hard. Lots of water. I mean serious rainfall here folks. Anyway, after the last few days of it, I noticed Dianna's hobby room was still leaking a smidge around the seam where the floor footing meets the wall blocks. So, I had Cody dig the gravel out from the wall, exposing the footing top and the lower wall. I went to Villa's Supply, and got a gallon of Dry-Lok (Thanks Twyla, for reminding me of the product name and where to get it). We managed to get one good coat on, and it had about an hour to dry before it started raining again.

I checked downstairs this morning - no leak. So, if all goes well and the forecast holds, I should be able to apply a second heavy coat Saturday or Sunday and then we should be good to go.

Cody Prepping the Footing/Wall Area for Dry-Lok

Let's see, what else? I made a short run to the Vet, Dr. Sheila. It seems Blue has a urinary track bacteria attack again. More antibiotics seem to do the trick and fast too; Canadian Bob has left for Canada for three weeks; Elsie's already there; We got her car back from Rick the mechanic - still full of glass. There's a new car wash place in town that does detailing. I'm going to take it there and have them go over it with a fine-tooth comb; I have to order a new keyboard for Dianna's computer. The "M", "N", "Enter", and a couple other keys just won't work. Hopefully, it's an easy fix. Speaking of, I got my computer working ok again, thanks to Roger Cookson.

Guess that's all for this evening,
Cheers.