A 'Lee' Bit of Gardening

I wanted to make some tomato cages. Thanks to Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com/), I came up with the perfect solution. When I typed in 'tomato cages' in Pinterest, one of the first photos that came up was a whole role of 'matting', as used for concrete pads, walkways, etc. I thought that's perfect. Now all I had to do was find some matting.

I texted Mario Zettina, the same contractor who rehabbed our pool, and the parking palapa, to see if, by chance, he had some extra matting just laying around.

Brand New Tomato Cages

By a happy chance, he did. A couple of days later, Endher, his foreman, swung by and dropped off a partial role for me. Today was the day I decided to take a whack at making them.

I figured they would need to be roughly three-feet high, and about twelve inches or so in diameter. Oh, I could have used the old standby formula, 2𝝅r. I skipped that, and went directly to the intertubes for it to work the formula and give me the answer. The answer was about forty-three inches +/- a smidge.

The full roll was six-feet wide, so I cut the roll into two roles then laid out flat one role and cut that into 43-inch sections.

Roughly 36"H x 43" Circum.

Putting the sections together by crimping a bit of the wire to its opposite end of the section, I was able to come up with a round cage just the right height and diameter to work as a tomato cage.

After making four of them, I was covered in sweat and was pooped. So, I figured the rest could wait till Monday when Carlos was here and he would be able to help me make the rest.

I should end up with eight to ten tomato cages. We'll be able to use a couple of them for the cucumbers as well.

Miss Noel Supervising

Of course, no job can be done here without adequate supervision. You can see Miss Noel checking the quality of the work. She likes to ensure that standards are maintained throughout her domain.

Cucumbers Grow Fast

We have four cucumber vines that have taken off like rockets in this bed. I was going to use a couple of cages here, but I'm afraid the cukes have progressed too fast to be able to use them.

I'd like to see some zucchini growing as well. Since we've been on the Keto diet, we use zucchini for all sorts of things, like spaghetti noodles, ravioli wrappers, chopped up in salads, and for a host of other things as well.

Sweet Peppers Grow Slow

The slowest starting of the stuff we've planted is the sweet (or green) peppers. Carlos swears that there are four pepper plants growing in this bed.

On a tentative note, Mario's crew is supposed to be starting Monday morning on the patio palapa. But after one of the biggest holidays of the year, Independence Weekend (Independence Day was 21 September), it remains to be seen just how up for the task they'll be, come tomorrow morning. More on this breaking story as it happens

Couple of Better Days Are Coming

That'd be Saturday and Sunday. That must mean this is Friday 07 October, 2016.

Corner Form Almost Done

Things just keep moving right along with the project. They're going to do the pour for the chain today. It'll be another full day.

Lots of Little Things Still To Do

And here it's underway. A bit of a balancing act up on top of the forms.

The Pour Rounds Turn One

The pour is  moving right along. It didn't get started as early as Endher though it would. he was hoping for around 10:30 AM, or so. The pour actually got going a little after 1:30 PM.

Tough Passing Buckets of Concrete

It's tough on the North wall passing those full buckets. There's not a lot of room to maintain one's balance.

Empty Ones Are Another Matter

On the other hand, getting rid of empties is relatively easy, just toss and it's gone.

More and More

Even though the chain form looks kinda small, it still takes a lot of buckets of concrete to get the job done.

Last Couple of Buckets Full

The pour is almost done. Endher is topping up the last little bit. and it's just now nudging 4:00PM. A good effort to get it done for the usual quitting time.

Hump Day At Casa Winjama

Started the day off right at 5:30 AM, with an invigorating walk with the girls. Four-and-a-half miles, plus some short stops for pee breaks for the girls, picking up mail at the Post Office (Deeohgee hit the jackpot with two complete absentee voter information packets from Washington State),
and a stop to pick up some meat pies for breakfast, and back home in under an hour and fifteen minutes.

I said she hit the jackpot, because those packets were huge, so she knew she was carrying something important.

We Did It Over A Week Ago!

Of course, the fact that Dianna and I had already voted a week-and-a-half ago (24 September, 2016) by email never entered into the discussion. I think Deeohgee could have cared less one way or another.

More Chain Boards Going Up

This is an exciting part of the construction. For some reason, it seems like this is really moving ahead fast, maybe because it's so visual.

Douglas Mounting Form Boards

What Douglas is fastening to the columns is the wood board that anchors the rest of the chain form. Well, the sticks help support it when those get installed, but this is the first bit that holds things up.

Indir and Erwin Cutting Form Boards

They're cutting the boards that make up the chain form. It's all pretty dense and heavy mahogany. Cutting is no easy task. It takes its toll on saw blades and saw motors. You can hear it as they cut. The motors really strain. No, it's not because they don't know how to use the tools, it's because the wood is very dense and very hard. Also, it's green, for several reasons. One, so they can cut it, and two, so it can be nailed and flex to hold the concrete when that's added. Otherwise, if the wood was dry or seasoned, it's doubtful that they'd be making near as much progress as they are.

Markup Begins for Accessibility Ramps

The beginning of marking stuff up to build the ramps. The ramps will essentially be mirrors of each other at either end of the pool deck. They will give Dianna easy access to the patio and to the parking area. She hasn't been able to get down to the patio since her accident, so once the ramps are operational, the area she can access easily will have increased dramatically. Besides, the patio has always been one of her favorite places to hang out, and I know she misses it.

Chain In Position on East Side

Things continue to move at a rapid pace. I didn't even know the steel had been moved into place till I stuck my head out of the kitchen sliding doors and, there it was. I'm hoping I can catch this next on as it goes into place. I have no idea how they do that.

Looks Like a Roman Aqueduct

Here's another shot of the East side steel. From this angle, it really does look like a Roman aqueduct.

Next up, I'm guessing, will be the form sides and bracing, then pour.

High-Wire Act

I had never really thought about it before, but traversing over the span of the chain is necessary to get things aligned correctly. Here's our performers venturing along the high-waire to ensure it's seated correctly.

Fastening the Sticks

Before the steel gets positioned, the sticks making up the forest have to be cut to length and fastened to the bottom form board.

Here - Catch This!

Did I say 'High-wire act?' Well, let's liven it up a little bit. Try tossing pliers back and forth, well, at least one way anyway. Daniel, on the right, almost took a header off the perch, reaching to retrieve the pliers tossed by Endher. End of the workday hijinks!

Monday, Monday

03 October, 2016. Back at work. Doggies in the pen, Nelson asleep in the 'basement', April sleeping in the closet. Dianna checking Facebook kitteh pictures.

Roof Overhang #1

The roof overhang will be on three sides of the pump house. The water-side will not have the built-in overhang. The overhang will be about one foot. Its purpose is to help keep rainwater from infiltrating the door and window louver.

Pump House Column Form

The column in the photo on the left side of the pump house presented some real problems during the pour. part of the form near the bottom gave out as the pour was going on, necessitating one of the guys to be positioned at the base, shoveling concrete into buckets to be re-poured from up above.

That finally got under control only to have a couple smaller leaks develop just above midway and up near the top. Neither were big deals and were quickly fixed.

Indir Shaping Column Rebar

Endher is busy bending the column rebar, to bring the pieces closer together, and trimming them to a specific height. The reason he's doing that is those pieces of rebar need to fit inside the chain rebar so that they maintain an even profile. Otherwise, there is no way to keep the chain aligned and smooth.

Bani Threading Polyducto

Just before the pour began, Bani, the electrician, fed Polyducto (the orange tubing) into various parts of the pump house. Think of it as flexible conduit.

The Roof Pour is Underway

And the pour gets started. A lot of labor hauling those buckets from the mixer to the roof. A young man's game for sure. Although Indir tells me there's a member of the professional crew that does these pours every day, who is around 56 years old and very fit. Still doing pours of  100-200 bags a day, and doing it very well. Indir said he's going to try and get him for our pour.

Roof Pour Completed

Here's the completed roof. Looks pretty good to me. A lot of work went into it.

Pool Project - A Week at a Pop - 09/15/2016 - 09/21/2016

Well, this edition of the 'Week at a Pop' postings will be the last of that. Hopefully, I can get to a daily  (mas o menos) schedule of postings that cover the latest on the project, but also what other stuff we're dealing with. Kind of like I used to do before Dianna's accident. I'd sort of mostly stay on a topic for that day, and on Sundays (or whatever day seemed appropriate) I'd do a 'grab-bag' edition of all the loose ends and pieces.

So, anyway, here's the next update:

Pump House Footing Almost Done

The pump house footing is coming along. It's designed to be about six inches above the patio floor level, so there will not be a drop-down step just outside the pump house.

Broken Spa Jet Pipe

One of the things we had problems with almost continually, was the spa jets just never seemed to work right. Part of the problem was found. Although separated now, it was just a cracked pipe when it was in the ground, supplying water to the jets. Plus it was undersized. Now the jets will have proper amount of water coming to them, so we should have good 'bubbleation' in the spa.

Drain Pipe For Filter Backwash

This pipe is the outfall for the filter backwash. it's connected to a pipe I buried a long time ago that started with the French drain (below) and also fed from the floor drains just outside the pump house and over by the patio table.

Part of Old Deck French Drain

Here's a corner of the French drain. It ran pretty much under the whole deck, keeping that area relatively free of excess rain water. It's not going to be used now, but we're leaving it in place, just because it's easier than trying to pull it up.

Pump House Floor Being Cast

A real sign of progress. The pump house floor has steel in it and the pour has begun. You can also see some of the piping that is coming into the pump house.

Pump House Floor Almost Done

The pour is almost done. I forgot to mention, there will be a floor drain in the near corner of the pump house (you can see it, covered with duct tape). It's tied directly to the backwash drain.

Pour Completed

Pump house floor is done. After it cures Endher will punch through so the floor drain in the near corner will once again show up.

Spa Jet Piping  Was Redone

The spa piping just looks so much more official now. No more inch-and-a-quarter stuff, it's all two inch piping. Should be a much better spa experience this time around.

Skimmer and Piping

Lots of real business-looking piping heading into the pump house now. I can't wait to see it in action.

Nice Looking Pipe Installation

Just a little better view of the piping and the pump house floor.

Lining Column Holes With Rock

Here's one of six or seven column footing holes being prepared. That's a piece of the French drain in the back. First they're lined with rock to allow the water from the underground stream to do it's thing.

Then Small Gravel

After a couple feet of rock are placed, then about six inches of small, hard gravel is laid on.

Then the Rebar

Then comes the rebar, base and column. Each of the columns will be braced with tying wire till the pour is completed.

And Then Many Buckets of Concrete

And finally, many buckets of concrete anchor it all in the hole. After that will come the actual casting of the columns themselves. The blue metal framework you see in the background once held our fabric awning up. It's coming out. Seems a shame, but it served its purpose and did a good job.

Pool Project - A Week at a Pop - 09/07/2016 - 09/14/2016

With this week, the project reaches about mid-September. And, it's become easier to see that progress is being made. Just like in a remodeling project, everything under the drywall is hidden from view, everything under the ground line or under a layer of concrete is pretty much hidden from view - even though it comprises about a hundred and seventy-five yards of rock, gravel, steel, and concrete. Very little of that will ever be visible to the naked eye.

Steel Frameworks Being Assembled

Some of the steel is in this shape, which will help define the columns and bracing around the pool

Steel in Position on the Backside

Here's some of those same bits of steel, each connected to a 'bed spring' of steel buried under a foot or so of rock and concrete. All this is on top of about four-and-a-half feet of rock.

Working in Close Quarters

Some of it necessitated working in close quarters. The guys have gone to great lengths to preserve as much of the Ereca palms as they could. I don't think we've lost any, although there were a couple of them that had to be relocated, but they're still doing fine, just somewhere else in the yard.

Remember, each five-gallon bucket full of wet concrete weighs around one-hundred-ten pounds. They passed these back and forth to help fill the excavation on the back side. Not to mention the tons of rock that they've already moved there.

Getting Column Forms Ready

Once all that is done, then the guys had to jockey heavy wooden forms into place in order for them to cast the columns. Nothing is ever easy. Remember, too, that this is September, one of the hottest months of the year, with commensurately high humidity levels. Truly abominable working conditions at times.

Deck Lumber Piled Up

I think I forgot to include this (or similar) photo earlier. It's all the treated lumber from our wooden deck. It's pretty much been spoken for, but I've held off distributing it, as I've said the constructioneers have first call for whatever their needs are for forms, etc.

In Position and Ready for Pour

Here's one of the forms ready for a pour of concrete. At this stage, the concrete will only go up to almost the top edge of the pool. After that at some time, additional steel will be tied to the stubs and then more forms, will run it up to around nine or ten feet.

Fastening Forms to the Structure

Of course each form has to be secured to something so that it doesn't move out of position during the pour. Endher is fastening the form and additional bracing to fulfill that purpose.

Positioning Rocks For Pump House

At the Pump house side of things, It's one of the last areas to be worked. Here, lots of rock is still being placed. The water looks overwhelming, but that's only because the guys dug down to firm rock/marl, in order to place three to five feet of rock. Because of that, the water pools in those low places until the rocks diplace it. The water is being channeled to go down the ditch through the patio to the canal.

First Pour On Top of Rocks

Once sufficient rock is in place then they start getting things ready to prepare a footing for the pump house. Here you can see the rock bed is pretty much done and a first bit of concrete is in place next to the pool, also helping to stabilize some of the piping for the pool.

Beginning the Pour

Here, they're beginning to set the forms and begin the pour for the footing of the pump house. Roughly the same shape as the first one, but about twice the floor space. Plus, all the valving and the pumps themselves will be elevated up off the floor, since us old fart folks just can't bend over as easily as we used to.

Bracing Columns Ready For Next Phase

I mentioned the stubs of the columns. Here is a good view of those. The lower part that you see here is fulfilling two purposes, one, the bracing to help secure the pool from any future shifting, and two, to become part of the column for the roof.

Removing Diamond-Brite Cap

Part of the project involved reworking the Diamond-Brite coating on the pool, and restoring the chain around the perimeter. Here, the cap of Diamond-Brite is being removed.

Cutting New Skimmer Opening

This last photo for the week shows the plumbers cutting a new opening for the skimmer. You can also see the footing coming along for the pump house.