L'ime not giving up..

Click on photo to enlarge

... or, the little lime tree that refused to die!

Two years ago we planted all sorts of fruit trees in the hopes having fresh fruit available to us when we retired. Little did we know that the construction of the Rancho, the Bodega, and later the Casa, would require us to move so many of the trees. This one little creole lime had to be transplanted THREE times, because it was always in the way of some construction effort. Then, to add insult to injury, our adopted dog, Gustavo, has managed to dig down to the lime's roots more times than we can count.

Every time we transplanted the tree, she dropped all her leaves and we figured she was a goner. Then a week or two after a transplant, we'd start to see new life in the form of bright green leaves. This last time we must have found her sweet spot in the garden! Not only did our little lime drop all her leaves, she turned right around and sprouted new leaves with hundreds of blooms. These blooms have since produced an unbelievable harvest of some of the best creole limes we ever tasted. They may even be better than the Key limes of Florida.

John has since placed landscaping rocks around the base of the tree to prevent Gus from attacking the roots again and I'm collecting limes that have fallen to the ground to make a Creole Lime Pie and enjoy a cold Lime & Coke.

¡Pura Vida!
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Quite a busy week here.  The roofers finished the main roof today. It was amazing to watch this crew.  Each day, they arrived on the bus, from San Jose, at the downtown Atenas bus terminal.  Then they walked out to our site.  That's a good kilometer of some serious up and down hill walking.  From our materials yard, they lugged stacks of tile, on their backs, up the mirador stairway and placed little stacks of 8 or 10 tiles at strategic spots all over the rooftop.  They worked like mules, all day, in the sun and then walked away at 5pm to go catch their bus for an hour trip home.  We're guessing that they're probably not each making $20 a day for this.  One of the bigger boys was able to lift a stack of 4 tiles and accurately throw it from the ground up to this guy in the picture.  I watched him do this at least 10 throws in a row -- one right after the other.  Never missed.  Never cracked a tile.

The general contractor showed up with our water storage tank.  This monster is needed because our barrio is only fed by a single 1/2" water "main."  Perhaps you can guess what happens when the dozen or so houses along this road all wake up in the morning and flush.  At times, the water pressure is so low that it barely drips from a faucet.  It can take an hour for the washing machine to fill with water.  The solution is to have a personal water storage tank large enough to hold a day's worth of water.  We're also going to add an electric pump because we don't want this lovely piece of bright blue "artwork" gracing our personal skyline, up on a high pedestal, as is done by many of the locals.  They let gravity give them pressure.  I'm more inclined to give nature a little boost.

The electricians finished pulling the last of the general service wiring, plus the alarm wiring and now they're laying in the breaker panels and the generator power switching panel.

The drywall contractor is gone, having created a virtual mountain of white dust. Fortunately this was one of the highest wind days of the Summer (yes, I know it's Winter -- they're a little seasonally confused down here) and there is just a light film of white remaining, everywhere.

Our resident carpenter is busy working the tenons for the deck rafters to their precision size.  These are socketed into steel "mortises" that I designed after we discovered that the architect's original plans didn't allow enough clearance or strength for old fashioned clay tiles. [His design called for us to have icky thin plastic sheeting for all of the patio roofing.  Eeyoooo.]   There are still a few kinks to work out with these seat-of-the-pants roofing designs but it looks like it's going to work. Anyhow, the rafters are going up and the furring strips will tie across them.

The roofing woods we're using are the most amazing woods I've ever handled.  The main rafter beams are a tropical wood called "areno. This species is so dense that the 2 x 6's, only 4 meters long, are almost too heavy for two men to lift. As it is, there will be a bunch of bruised shoulders when everyone is finished carrying these beasts.

Even the 2 x 2's used for the cross furring are almost comically heavy.  They're supposed to be a "lesser" wood species but they're each quite a chunk of tree. I'm hoping for a couple of 3-foot pieces to be left over so that I can turn them into some scarey-heavy cave man clubs.

So, that's the start of a busy week and it ain't half over yet! Stay tuned. Film at 11.
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233: Construction changes and decisions

Last week was a week of many changes and decisions on the Casa construction and some of the design and materials being used.

The first surprise was the ceiling in the great room and kitchen. The crew was busy framing out for fur-downs because our civil engineer had included them in the plans. I guess we missed that when we reviewed the specs. I’ve always thought fur-downs, or dropped ceilings around the perimeter of a room, make the room look smaller. That is the last thing we want to do with the great room.

In 2008, we remodeled our kitchen and ripped out the fur-downs so we could extend the kitchen cabinets all the way to ceiling. We sure don't want any fur-downs in this house. Fortunately for us, the construction team had only started on the first fur-down in the living room when we caught it and asked them what they were doing. We immediately called a halt to the dropped ceiling look.

The next surprise was the roofing material specified for the Terraza and the entryways for the front and back doors. This was supposed to some sort of polycarbonate material that would allow light through and block the ultra-violet rays.

The plan was to place this material on a metal structure. We had never seen this stuff installed, so we arranged for an agent of a company that sells the polycarbonate sheets to come with color sample and then we went to see it installed at a home near us.

This plastic stuff is not at all the look we are going for with our Spanish Colonial Casa and its clay tile roof. Aside from not being the look we are going for, the polycarbonate sheets are expensive and have a short life expectancy. Needless to say, we squashed this design idea immediately. Rodolfo, one of the construction bosses, informed us we needed to settle on “Plan B” as soon as possible, because the crew would not have enough work to keep them all busy until they could start on the interior spaces, like floors and tile work.

John and I talked about what our options were and how we could keep the Spanish Colonial look. We decided to go with wood beams, instead of steel, and clay barrel tiles that will have the underside of the tile exposed. Thursday, our other construction boss, Eliécer, decided we really need to make a shopping trip to look at the types of woods that are available. He took us to an incredible lumber mill about 30 minutes from our house, in Alajuela. The fellow that waited on us started working at the mill when he was only 12 years old and has been working there for 38 years! This guy really knows his woods and he showed us some amazing stuff. We brought back a number of samples to consider over the weekend.

On Friday, John put together a new design for the Terraza and entry ways that will consist of heavy 2”x6” hardwood beams made of Areno and 2”x2” furring strips of a lighter wood called Melina. The beams will be mounted to the house with steel brackets. Rodolfo liked the re-design we came up with, so Monday we went back to the lumber mill to order all the wood.

Yesterday, the electricians were here to pull cable. Today, the workers are busy floating the walls of the interior of the Casa, so they’ll have a smooth texture, and the rest of them are helping Rodolfo with the structures needed to support the wood beams and barrel tile roofs of the Terraza & entryways.

The roofing company just called and they will be here shortly to begin laying the clay tile on the Casa. We also expect the lumber mill will deliver all the wood we ordered sometime today. The rest of the clay tile needed for the Terraza and entry ways will be delivered and installed next week.

Lots of activity and things are really starting to look good. The next update will have photos of the clay roof and some of the other features of the Casa that are close to being completed.
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Another shopping trip for the Casa

Back in December we decided the overall style of the Casa would be traditional Spanish Colonial. Since then we have been on several shopping trips to select material. We've selected a multi-tonal clay barrel tile for the roof similar to what you see here.

My wonderful nephew, Alex, is the owner of a foundry here in Costa Rica that manufactures products from recycled aluminum and bronze. He made the drains for the bathroom showers and the laundry room as a gift for us. Today we took a trip into the capital, San Jose, to pick them up and take Alex to lunch. While we were there we decided to do some shopping for tile trim options for the house. All of the floors in the Casa are going to be red ceramic tile, but we want different accent pieces to add texture and character. Finding these accent pieces has been a challenge, but today, we found what we need to give the Casa the look and feel we want.

This is the boarder trim we are going to use in the great room. We plan to lay a square pattern of tile, one meter wide, from the walls toward the center. Next the boarder trim will be laid and the center will laid in a diamond pattern using the same red tile.

I really want to bump up the color in the kitchen. Today, we found this painted clay tile that adds both interesting texture and my favorite color scheme. We will use this as a border on the floor and also for accent pieces in the counter and range back splashes. I'm thinking of making the range hood cobalt blue tile with this trim on the edge. We haven't decided yet if the counter surface should be granite or tile.

We bought this accent piece to install in the center of the floor in the Nook/Office. It will be surrounded by the same red tile we are using in the rest of the house.

Wouldn't you know it, when we got home this afternoon, the builder told us they will be ready to install the folding attic stairway in the next couple of days. Of course we haven't bought it yet, so it looks like another shopping trip tomorrow.

We still haven't made any decisions on how we are going to accent the floors in the bedrooms and bathrooms, so I see many more shopping trips in our future.
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Safety Pains

So, here I sat in a great state of relaxation – Mr. ex-Safety Officer – and I look over toward the house construction site expecting to see yet another minor safety infraction, such as no safety glasses, etc.

But, this is a special day, being Valentine’s Day and all, so I guess Da Boyz thought my blood pressure needed a little boost.

Several of the workers have been setting steel beams which will support the Mirador so that several dozen of you can be up there on the solstice drumming and dancing your way through some pagan rituals whilst having no fears of the deck collapsing under your rhythms. At least that’s what the calculations show. But I digress ...

The beams being set are heavy and some of you know that these workers have no cranes or pretty much ANY type of equipment to help them with the lifting. A slightly abnormal level of excitement must have grabbed my attention. As I looked and the “picture came into focus” in my foggy brain, I realized that the boss is on one end of a beam, holding it in position, above his head ... the welder is on the other end of the beam trying to tack weld it onto its mounting plate ... and they’re losing their grip.
 
So, (of course) they’ve yelled at the oldest and shortest of the workers to, “quick, get up on there on the stack of blocks and help us!” Well, being a good Tico worker, he jumps into action but comes up a little short of reaching the overhead beam. Grabbing the nearest things at hand – more concrete blocks – he creates an even higher stack.

And that’s when I saw it.
 

And this is its photo.
 
And beneath that is an enlargement of it: The Extra Special Stacking Job done in order to reach the beam.
 
I fired up out of my chair and crossed the intervening 30 feet in seconds yelling, “Hey!” all the way while pointing frantically at the block pile about to collapse.
 
The old man looked down and then up at me with a, “Wuuuut?” look on his face. 

But, it was the boss who was quick with the words.
 
“Oh, it’s O.K. – he’s lived long enough anyway.”
 
They all laughed. Pat smirked. I went back to my chair and shut the heck up.





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A big damn wind

Had a little breeze blow through yesterday. Pat and I were lazily sitting in the rancho, Internet surfing and we saw it coming just in time to slam the lids on our laptops, close our eyes and turn away.

“Well, there,” she said, “your first sirocco.”
sirocco
Noun
sirocco (plural siroccos)

1. A strong southerly to southeasterly wind on the Mediterranean that originates in the Sahara and adjacent North African regions.
2. In Costa Rica, “A big damn wind” – sudden and short.

Thanks for the lesson in Costa Rican. I won’t be needing any more examples of that word. Hard to forget.

I heard it coming but the sound as it moved from tree to tree, charging across the sports plaza, just wasn’t different enough from our everyday blustery winds to get me to look up. It wasn’t until it hit the line of trees on the other side of our driveway that it jerked us to awareness. Too late.

The leading edge was probably only moving at around 5mph, but if you think about it, something really big, moving across a driveway and about 50 feet of lawn, coming straight at you, is on top of you, FAST.

What I remember (sounds like an accident victim, doesn’t it) is the big trees bending wildly and then a roiling cloud of white dust exploding up off the driveway (gravel driveway). It jumped the perimeter wall and shot across the lawn; but, not before it slammed into the icky brown casa-excavation dirt pile, right at the edge of the lawn – which is directly in line with half of the rancho. The cloud turned brown. Then my eyes were closed.

The push of the wind’s hand was firm and the pelting of sand, dirt and other detritus sucked into its maw peppered us and everything in sight with a layer of “gooble” the likes of which I’d never seen. And then it was gone.

Randy's a little baffled by the footprints in the layer of dirt.

The remains of a potted flowering plant. Dirt in the upper right corner.

The cleanup will take days because it is inside everything as well as on the outside.

The "splatter" to the left of and top of the burlap is dirt. Every square inch of counter space and floor looks like this.

Mr. Sirocco, I’m not very happy with you.
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214: Making Charcoal & Construction Update

When we were packing up our sea container back in Houston, we found we had a couple of bags of Kingsford Charcoal Briquettes. Rather than throw them out, we loaded them into the container and shipped them to Costa Rica with the rest of our stuff. Since we have now been here for more than 6 months, we have been doing a lot of outdoor grilling, and our U.S. charcoal supply is now gone. So John, who never ceases to amaze me with the things he knows how to do, has now started making his own charcoal.

Recently, ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad) came through various neighborhoods trimming and removing trees so they could replace all the old creosote electrical poles with new concrete poles and new power lines. All of the debris from the trees has been stacked along side the roadways and lots of folks have been gathering it for firewood. Many families in Costa Rica still have wood burning stoves. We've been helping ourselves to some of this firewood for our new stone oven. Every time we finish using the oven for something, John would load it up with a batch of logs to be dried out by the residual heat after we've made bread or cooked pizza.

Now, instead of just drying out wood for the next batch of bread or pizza, John is now making the charcoal you see in the bin on the right. He will stoke the stone oven up to about 800°F or 900°F. and place wood inside this large kettle. There is a small hole in the kettle to let the gases escape. Then, he puts a weight on the lid to lock everything place and closes up the oven. Several hours later, when the wood in the kettle has had all of the volatiles burned out of it, we have charcoal. Our charcoal bin is now full again thanks to this clever man of mine. Pretty cool!

Meanwhile the construction is coming along nicely. Yesterday, they poured the concrete steps to the mirador (observation deck) John will use for his star gazing with his telescope.

The galvanized steel roof is now on and we are just about ready for the colonial clay barrel tiles to be laid on top. This week the crew also finished all the water lines and tested the connections under pressure at about 120 psi to make sure we have no leaks. This coming week we should see a roof over the carport that doubles as the floor to the mirador.

Tomorrow, we have a house sitter/guard coming over, so we can get away for a few hours and attend the 5th Annual Atenas Charity Chili Cook-off. This is a benefit for the local orphanage. This year they have more than 25 teams and expect more than 1,000 attendees. It should be lots of fun and we are looking forward to some good old Texas Chili.

Well family and friends, that's about all the news for today.
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Tico Ingenuity

It is absolutely fascinating watching our Ticos build the big casa. One of the construction company’s owners put their philosophy best: “In the campo, if you have no dogs to hunt, you use cats.”

Don’t have a construction laser to shoot the grades?

Use a 100-ft long piece of clear tubing, filled with water. Dump out a little water so that each end of the tube has about a foot of empty space. Once the water level on one end of the tube is “set” to grade, up or down, the water level at the other end of the tubing, around the corner, over the hump, out of sight and down the ditch will indicate the same set-point.

Don’t have a transit to shoot the corners, make the building square and keep each course of concrete block level and true? These guys just use sticks, a ball of string and simple geometry. Our inspection engineer came by a day after these guys did their string layout and checked everything. He pronounced the house dead nuts true and square.

No earthmoving machinery to level the lot and dig the foundation footer trenches? Six guys with shovels and determination can do the same tricks in a few days. What the heck ... we’ve got nothing but time and they don’t cost much. Besides, they bring their own fuel (lunch) and never break down or blow a hydraulic hose. Where does the dirt go? Not into expensive dump trucks for haulaway. The army of diggers filled wheelbarrows and they piled it near the rancho, building board ramps so that they could push and pile dirt higher and higher.

Did the architect specify a plethora of complex and differing steel reinforcement bends and intertwining for the concrete steel reinforcement? And you don’t have the computer-controlled bending machinery? No problem, build a levered out of an old ball bearing and some angle iron; drill pin holes into the work bench; mark out the lengths of rebar for each bend, then have at it. Watching these guys bend iron makes me wonder if the automated machines could keep up, given their long setup times.

No concrete redi-mix plant or cement mixer trucks? So, bring your little ½ yard, tilting drum mixer, with an army of wheelbarrows and wheelbarrow pushing workers and have at it. It’s fresher concrete this way anyhow!

Today, though, I saw the ultimate Tico Engineering job (so far.) They’ve been welding 4” and 3” square tubular steel together for the main roof joists and trusses ... in half sections. What were they doing? How the heck were they going to get those things from the ground, up 13 feet on top of the walls and standing, without a crane? How indeed.

They build the trusses in halves because experience has told them that the entire crew, working together can only push, pull, cajole and curse half of one truss up top, BY HAND(!).

Watch.


First, you rassle a 1/2 ton truss piece, by hand, from around back, then "clean 'n jerk" the small end up onto the 2-meter wall.






Muscle the big side up until the wall is taking about half the load and then tilt the truss up and slide it to the guys up top.









Push and shove until the center of mass balances the whole mess up on the house wall.

Then stand the truss up so they have the narrow contact point to slide against.












 
How the heck are they going to take two halves, wobbling around in the wind and weld them together so that they make one STRAIGHT and square truss?

Well, remember the string tricks and laying out the house so that it’s square? So, these guys know that the house and its walls are square ... all the way to the top. So you lay a half truss on its side, up on top of the walls, and true it to them. The other half gets laid down across the house on the opposite walls and trued up to them.

Then the welder climbs up a rickety homemade wooden ladder and welds the two halves together. Duh.

Tip the whole mess up and, voila.

These guys are a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

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