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Showing posts with label Grader. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grader. Show all posts

13 September, 2010

Everything Happens At Once

Just when you think nothing's happening... I was just about ready to jump into the rain locker to replace the old sweat with some new, fresh sweat, when everything happened.

First, here comes Mr. Trummer with his track hoe to unstick the grader. Right behind them, not more than two minutes, comes a delivery van and trailer with cement and rebar for the bulkhead project.

I got distracted with watching the van bringing in the cement as he was perilously close to where our 3" drain pipe runs out to the canal. This pipe drains most of the storm water from our house gutters, and several ground drains I have around the place, so it was critical that it stay functional.

That all went well. I did make it downstairs to snap a shot of the guys beginning to offload the cement.

Off-Loading The Goods

After taking this shot, I returned to the house to fetch my gate remote so I could go take a few shots of the track-hoe yanking on the grader.

As I was heading up the stairs, I looked up just in time to see the hoe pulling the grader out of the muck. I barely had time to snap this image from our front step landing.

Abracadabra - It's Out!

So, the grader is now out of trouble. I took a break for a few minutes, then went back down to see how the unloading was going. I headed out the door just in time to see the delivery van heading for the gate. They had unloaded the rebar and bags of cement, so I headed down to take look-see.

Precarious At Best

And here's the result. About 50 110-lb bags of cement, all carefully balanced on one pallet. I suppose they'll use the smallest guy in the crew to pull off the initial bags come time for the pour.

Now, I can relax, take a quick shower and head down for pool time... But wait! Thunder is coming and dark skies. Pool time might be limited today. C'est la vie.

18 April, 2009

Oh No! Our Speed Bumps Are Disappearing

Well, of course the Minister of Works didn't read my blog. If he had, it wouldn't be necessary to write this article on speed bumps (pot holes) again.

In my previous posting (http://winjama.blogspot.com/search/label/Potholes%20and%20Mud), which was titled: Slow Down You Move too Fast, I wrote imploring the Minister to not fix our pot holes (oops, sorry - our speed bumps) as they realy did work fairly well as deterrents for speeding buses, trucks and other vehicles. Of course, the ones that didn't slow down still managed to jar our house several times a day as they careened over the various bumps and holes out front.

On another posting, I mentioned that we could sell our pot holes as speed bumps
(http://winjama.blogspot.com/search/label/potholes), thus taking care of Belize's national debt. We may still be able to do that.

Now that the UDP (United Democratic Party) is the party in power, repairs and maintenance to infrastructure seems to be more or less consistently done, instead of the way of the former power holders, PUP (People's United Party), who seemed to mostly repair and maintain their pocket linings, if you get my drift.

So what happens? Well, the past few mornings, they've had a grader out re-defining the road edges, sort of improving the chances of drainage occurring the way it is supposed to. I had called Craig yesterday that he may want to come out and make sure they didn't grade away his survey stakes for his lots across the road. Mae and Craig asked the grader driver if they were going to pave the road. Apparently, that's not in the cards.

Oh yes, and for the past couple of weeks, heavy dump trucks have been zooming up and down our road, taking loads of marl down by the ferry landing somewhere, to beef up the road in some of its trouble spots.

Anyway, after all that, this morning those same dump trucks started dumping their loads in front of and near by our house.
Several Loads of Marl Being Delivered
More Marl Arriving
And before I forget what's really important, Cindy wanted me to remind you to always eat a good breakfast. Here she is, setting a fine example - even while all the dump trucks are going by. Normally, dump trucks set her off like a rocket. She loves to bark at them, unless there's food to be eaten first. I'm not sure where Secret was at this time, so Cindy helped her out by cleaning Secret's bowl for her. They do that for each other now and again.

Cindy Showing Her Good Table Manners
Then, the grader that has been edging the roadway shows up and proceeds to level the piles of marl. He does a nice job of it too.
The Grader in Action
Now, if only they would bring the roller out to go over everything and really pack it down. This is an important step, as just driving over marl with rubber tires takes a long time to sufficiently compact it so that when the rains come, it doesn't all turn to muck and mud, thereby making our lives miserable for a couple of weeks. That is, till the marl begins to dry out, leaving tracks where everyone drove through, following the guy in front of them. These tracks level out after some time, but do so in a way that encourages pot holes again, and the cycle continues. I see no sign of a roller.

BTW, we have rain in the forecast for next week. Naturally.

I think I'll go wash the Eye-suzu. That should speed up the process.