Wednesday and Thursday At the Worksite

Wednesday and Thursday were both forecast to be either overcast, or to have varying levels of thunderstorms and/or rain. Well, as you can see, both were just horrible days. The workers managed to persevere through it all and continued work on the column forms in spite of the sunshine.

Next Column Form Up

Taking one of the forms apart after casting. Believe it or not, the wood for these is one-inch thick mahogany. Used for concrete forms. It would be unthinkable up north, but is standard practice here. Also, each form takes almost three people to maneuver them around and into place. They are extremely heavy.

Blue Cheese Nut Bread

So, while I was waiting for a thunderstorm to show up, I found a recipe on the back of the label for some blue cheese that I had bought for some other recipe. It's for a cranberry, blue cheese, and nut bread.
Baking it was very easy. I didn't have to let it rise or beat it down. Too simple.
It baked up just fine and came out of the pan perfectly.
Some butter spread over a slice just tasted fantastic. I may have to make this one again.

Precarious Position to Pour

Ok, back to work. Here's Indir precariously balanced on a ladder, ready to pour buckets of concrete down the form.
As of this morning, we're a smidge past half way on filling all the columns - six done and five to go. Might be finishing the remaining five today. it'll be close.

Douglas Looking at Window Lintel

The pump house is coming right along. Blocks have reached their final height. Lintels are in and poured for both the door and window.
I'm guessing that next comes casting the roof of the structure.

Marl Pile Disappearing

Little by little, mounds of marl are disappearing. Here, about half of the marl pile is gone, used as fill for the concrete deck.

Eraca Palm Bed Back to Normal

Some of that marl has been used to re-establish the planting area on the north side of the pool where the eraca palms are located.
It's nice to see that area getting back to normal. I about gave up on it when the project first started. It looked like all of the palms there were going to have to come out. Such proved not to be the case. Overall, we only lost two palms, and both of those got replanted over on the south side of the property, along the fence line over there.

Mini-Lumberyard Under the Palapa

I mentioned the mahogany for the forms. Here's the lumberyard the guys established to create the forms.

Doggies Adapted Well to New Pen

To keep the dogs from getting underfoot while construction is going on, and to prevent familiarity developing with the workers, the girls get penned up every day while work is going on. It only took them about three days to decide their new zinc shelter was a good thing. It's shady, cool, and free of ants.

Bani - Electrician Installing Conduit

We had asked to have a couple of outlets placed in some of the columns. Here, Bani, the electrician, is positioning the conduit and boxes prior to the pour for that column.

Pool House Expansion Project, Days Twenty-Three, 24/10/15

Here we are at another day of the Pool House Expansion Project.

Day Twenty-Three - 24 October, 2015

One of the daily tasks the crew does is a general sweepdown of the whole construction area. Otherwise, the concrete debris would become overpowering in short order.

A Clean House is a Happy House

 Several columns and lintels have gone up. All of them will be tied in to the chain, the ring, or the belt-beam, whatever you want to call it, hopefully, making it a unitized structure of sorts.

Another Column Form Up

 Just a shot down the south walkway, which is the narrow walkway. The west and east walkways are both six-foot wide, while the south walkway is only four-foot wide. It was simply a cost-cutting measure that lopped off a few square feet thus lowering the cost a bit.

South (Narrow) Walkway Very Crowded

 Here's an overhead hot of the west outer wall. It's almost ready to receive the wooden forms for the chain.

West Outside Wall Almost Complete

 This is the lintel form for the office, on the right, going under the lintel from there takes you into the living room.

Office Doorway Lintel Is Ready

 Cutting up some wood for a form. Concrete houses use up much more wood than you would think for forms and supports, etc. Most of it is taken out after the concrete cures, and can be reused for other projects and stuff.

Surprising How Much Wood A Concrete House Needs

 Here's a view of the outside, south wall, showing the screen openings. We're planning to use shadecloth, like what we used on the pool awning and in the garden awning. Gina and Keith used it for their whole veranda on their house and like it well, so we're going to give it a go ourselves.

Outside, South Wall

 This view is looking from the southwest corner along the western outer wall, also showing the screen openings.

Outside West Wall

There's many more photos than appear in each posting. You can see all the photos of the construction project on Flickr at: https://www.flickr.com/gp/winjama/0wVc3s. There will be new photos added each day of the project.   

Pool House Expansion Project, Days Seventeen Through Twenty-One, 17-22/10/15

Here we are at another day of the Pool House Expansion Project.

Day Twenty-One - 17 October, 2015, More or less, Through the 23rd.

You're probably wondering (maybe not, but bear with me anyway) what happened to days 17 through 30 of the project. Well, they didn't just disappear. There was work done on those days.

I think I explained in a previous post about the problems I've had with the computers, both my desktop, requiring a virtually complete rebuild, to the inability of my iPad to take care of, what seems to me, to be rather mundane and day-to-day bloggings tasks, like a posting that is longer than four or five paragraphs and that might contain more than one photograph - with caption yet.

Today will be the start of a sort of catch-up blog day. I've got several photos to share, some will only appear on Flickr (you can find the link in the last paragraph of this post). I'll put them in, more or less in order, so you'll see chronologically, how the construction is progressing.

To start things off, each day, after the workers have gone home, the dogs, free of their pen, head immediately over to the construction to see how things are progressing. Likewise, the cats, at least April and Nelson, come with us when we inspect the site. I'm sure they all are looking at the job with a critical eye, and not merely looking for a tasty morsel that the workers might have left behind.

April Inspecting the Quality of Work

We're only putting in one kitty door, and that's on the west side of the house, through the office. That's mainly to encourage the cats to stay on the land side of the house. We don't want to encourage them to come around to the canal side any more than we have to. It's probably all a moot issue, as they're going to do just what they want to regardless of what we want them to do.

These two photos were from Saturday, 17 October, 2015.

Nelson Checking The Kitty Doorway for Proper Fit

These next two are from Wednesday, 21 October, 2015, and illustrate just how fast everything is moving along. Walls are reaching their final height, lintels are being cast in place.

Lintels Are Going Up All Over

And, Omar is usually in two places at once, checking on measurements and lining things up properly.

Omar With His Ever-Present Tape, Measuring Things

The 22nd of October, another fine day, I managed to capture The guys getting one of the column forms ready to deploy.

Column Form Being Readied For Use

The following day, the23rd, was exciting, as this was the day the Mennonites were going to deliver the trusses. And that will be a new posting.

There's many more photos than appear in each posting. You can see all the photos of the construction project on Flickr at: https://www.flickr.com/gp/winjama/0wVc3s. There will be new photos added each day of the project.  

First Post of the New Year!

It seems to me that for the first post for the year to the blog that I should be writing something meaningful, something weighty, something pithy, something erudite, something...

Ok, ok. Enough of that crap. I don't have anything "heavy" to talk about. I am feeling pretty good about the new year however. It hasn't been around long enough yet to get screwed up. I do have some pictures of our guest house and the progress they've been making.

For example, how about the lintel over the kitchen window? They've done the same for the two small windows in the utility room, bathroom and bedrooms. So, progress is coming along. I think I mentioned it yesterday, that by the end of next week, they may be ready to cast the roof. Now that'd be progress!

Kitchen Window Lintle Inside

Kitchen Window Lintle Outside

Most of the electrical outlets and switches have been put in place. Here's Esidoro cutting one of the last outlet boxes in the kitchen - probably for the microwave.

Esidoro Making a Dense Cloud

Cleaning Up Spilled Concrete

One of the things I was adamant about was that there should be no mess on the wood deck from their construction. They've actually done pretty good at keeping it clean. Each day, their young worker is detailed (one of the sh** jobs, I'm sure) to clean it up. You can see him doing just that above.

Now that we're in the dry season, watering plants becomes necessary. Actually, we had to do it even in the rainy season (well, Cody actually had to do it). We call it the "rainy season". It's more properly the "hurricane season" as we don't get all that much rain, on average, in any season.

Dianna Taking A Turn With the Hose

It seems strange, but we've been without Cody since Christmas Eve. That and Boxing Day, two official holidays, the weekend, and Cody taking his one week annual vacation, split by New Year's Day, another holiday. A good bit of time off. We're looking forward to his return on Monday.

Since we hired him on Christmas Day year before last, he was entitled to a week's vacation after completing a year with us. Time flies.

One of the many plants that Dianna was watering is the coleus below. Up north, y'all know it as a house plant. Down here, it's practically a weed. There's a ton of plants around here that grow big and fast that only struggle in pots up north.

Our Garden Coleus

On paydays, Jose, the Sandwich Man, comes by to collect on the bills from all the workers around the area. He runs Corozal's equivalent of the sandwich wagon, the roach coach, ptomaine express, whatever you want to call it. What Jose does is, he brings sandwiches and patties (spicy, ground beef in a folded-over fried totilla) and juice drinks in plastic baggies, to all the workers at construction sites around the area. It's all pretty good too. He carries the lot in one or two five-gallon pales on his scooter.

Yesterday was his day to collect what was owed. On his stop here to collect from our workers, he had his young son with him. Always an opportunist, they took time to fish in our canal boat slip cutout. Jose was teaching his son how to cast a weighted line (none of the locals use poles or reels). The kid was pretty good too. He was routinely making 25-30 foot casts - with accuracy!

Jose, the Sandwich Man and His Son Fishing

Our Crew Watching Jose

Now, you can tell where I was shooting the action. I was in one of the bedrooms before the wall had gone up way high. As I was watching, I thought, "This would be an ideal place for a window. What a view." On our plan, we had no window on that wall. We do now. I called Bob and told him I wanted one in there. The timing was perfect as they would be ready to block it in today. So, one of our bedrooms in the guest house now has two windows.

This afternoon, I supervised Miss Blue as she was outside munching on grass for another full-body experience, as cats do. I looked up to see Cindy and Secret watching her. They're really good with her too. They've kept her from going out of the yard before when she's snuck (is that a word?) out with no escort. Blue's not afraid of them at all.

Cindy and Secret Keeping a Watchful Eye on Blue

Ok. That's it for post number one. I'll try to keep the usual high quality going for another year.

Cheers,
Dave

Work, Work, Work - The Story Continues

Tuesday, the crew showed up and got with the program. Lintels are in place (pre-cast by John). Today, they're prepping the roof of the pump house. It will probably be poured by this afternoon.

Pump House - Waterfall Side

Pump House - Door Side

The walls have gotten their full quota of concrete now - ready for the ring beam to be cast on top. Here you can see John using his vibrator to settle the concrete into the holes. When he uses the vibrator, the level of the concrete goes down about 8 - 10" each hole. So, for strengthening concrete, it's really worthwhile to use one of those. It gets rid of all the air pockets.

John Using the Vibrator Tool and Manuel Pouring Concrete

Agusto and Manuel Pouring Concrete Into Block Holes

We had some rain the past few days. As you can see, we've got about 2" in the pool. Also, here's a view of the steps progressing. They've actually poured concrete in all the holes in the steps - I just haven't gotten a shot yet of that bit completed. John has added one more step at the bottom, which goes out into the pool. He felt it was just too much of a reach without it. It is going to look so cool when it's done.

Almost Ready for Swimming

Steps Getting Close to Being Done

I had some problems with the generator. The motor ran fine, but suddenly stopped producing current. Not a good thing. Anyway, I've been in touch by phone and email with DEK's tech folks (well, Brian anyway). He's been very helpful so far. I'm hoping it's just a component or two that is the problem. An easy fix would be nice.

So, this picture is of the control panel for the generator. The nerve center of the machine. Easy to get to and a nice clean and fairly straight forward layout.

DEK 5650EL Generator Control Panel - Behind the Scenes