Topo Map of house's area

Paul tweaked this satellite map to show the area our house (small square) is being built and its proximity to Volcan (larger square to the South). Just click on the title to access it.

Laying floor

Today, we arrived at the worksite to find the crew laying concrete in our future kitchen. They were equipped with a really great vibrator to shake the gravel down,
but only had a narrow 'float', so being the field mechanic/engineer that he is, Paul and Carlos were soon fabricating something better out of a scrap of rafter.



And now to test it ...
Works fine - see the result:

Paul's pump, again

This is the pool at the side of the river, where Paul catches the water for his pump:

And from the pool, the water runs down this pipe to the pump - I think he said it was 100-120 feet + 13 feet downward. Regardless, once he finishes burying this tubing, the project is done except for devising an attractive water feature in the yard:
Paul took this photo of his ram pump, so now you know what it looks like ... I still think it works by magic, I mean how can the thing spew out water down below, yet pump a gallon or more of water straight up to the garden every ten second?

Out n About in Panama's Chiriqui Province

Photo of the week - Baru lit by the setting sun:
Meet Juan T., our neighbor, who invited us to join him for a trip to visit another of his places. He checked the tide tables before we all headed down the mountains, because after we ran out of road we moved from the truck to Juan's canoe...
Juan timed our trip to ride the 'right tides' through the channels, most of which bordered old mangroves inhabited by many species of birds and cute crabs. We saw fish leaping, flies darting and locals swimming, but mostly, I saw Paul's back ;-)
Isn't this place spectacular?
Our destination is finally in sight!
And THIS is the view from Juan's place ... can you imagine having the Pacific right out your front door?:


This is a photo of the estuary where Juan docks his canoe ... once only the tree tops were visible, it was deep enough to get back through the mangroves to the mainland.

Starting stucco

Stucco starts with putting up boards as guides for the crew to use, after the wall is done, they pop the boards off and automatically have a clean edge:


The crew has started 'skinning' the wall:



Here you see the finished wall - they will do this to the interior walls as well:



Now, I know the following photo doesn't look very exciting, but that pile of gravel will soon be my floor, so I consider the arrival this coupled with a very unphotogenic pile of bags containing portland cement something to cheer about:

Paul's latest project...

No photos for this - couldn't figure out a way to make it look interesting...

Ever since he heard about them in engineering class, Paul has wanted to build a hydraulic ram pump; it took buying this lot to make constructing one feasible. So, he took a break from building his wall, bought a bunch of PVC pipe and fittings and built a system to move water from the Tisingal Rio up the bank so we could use the 'fortified water' (don't forget there's a trout farm uphill from us ;-) for our plants.

Basically the thing works on a mathematical formula comprising length of accumulator pipe, and drop. Gravity is its ONLY means of propulsion (that or magic). Whatever, every ten seconds, it's pumping a gallon of fishy water straight up the bank. The plants are thrilled.

& the roof begins to turn red...

I've previously showed you lots of wood rafters, now the crew is starting to put drywall on top of them and we STILL haven't seen the promised metal go in except for a few token bits! This looks good on the inside, plus it gives sound proofing. After the drywall is on, 2 inch square boards are put on top of the rafters. These provide three things: 1) a place to secure the roofing; 2) dead air space, which is good insulation; 3) a convenient space to run wires for the ceiling lights:

Here, a few sheets of the tile roofing are going on top of the furring strips:

Here is a complete side:
The project continues to progress at a steady pace, so I suspect that pig should begin to worry about being the main 'guest' at the dry-in fiests in another week or so.

Once the roof is done, the walls still need to be smoothed, the electrical run + fixtures, etc. installed, the plumbing fixtures installed (almost all pipe and conduit are already in, but they are very dull photos), windows & doors, paint, acid stain for the counters and floors and then we get to (drum roll, please) move in!!!

For now, Paul and I continue to putter away at the garden. This week, Paul built a hydro ram pump, which worked fine when he tested the design (it's not particularly photogenic, though it's highly functional at moving water from the creek into the garden).

His current project is burying the tubing for his pump and guess what - he's finding lots more big, lovely rocks.

Who would have foreseen that?!

Since he's got the pump, he's been 'digging' out the big ones (one ton or more) with hydro-power, which seems slow, but gets things done quite nicely if left alone for a few hours... as long as he doesn't ignore the pump too long, this is good - don't want the water to erode us our own Grand Canyon or anything.

This n that

We're getting VERY close to having a 'real roof'!!!
& Paul has gotten a long section of wall finished - he's looking at the end of this project - at least as much as he can do for the moment.

We discovered this sturdy foot bridge on our wanderings this week ... horses use it ... I couldn't be paid to ride a horse across that bridge!




This is what was under the bridge:

--- it's called Rio Piedra (Stone River - I think that's quite appropriate).