Barrandilla ya puesto

(Domingo 21 - Sabado 27 Abril)   Sunday we had planned to go to the Cosco area with Ania and Frank to check out their two cabins there. Ania was not feeling well, so we stayed home. Dan started wiring up the various switches, outlets and light fixtures in the new bathroom.

Monday our crew was late arriving, and didn't get here until just before 9am. Seems that foreman Luís did not get home from his trip to Oaxaca until 4am and needed some sleep before coming to work. We left shortly after they arrived and started stripping paint from the exterior walls. We ended up being gone almost the whole day, which began with a bank stop and a little shopping and then to Carmen's last teeth adjustment with Dr Soley. When finished, he talked to us about books we read. Seems that he would like to borrow some from us so that he can keep up with his english. Dan gave him a web site where he can get free books on line to read on his computer.

Next we went to IMSS for a doctors appointment to get Carmen's prescriptions updated for another month. We got there two hours early for the early afternoon appointment, thinking that we would be taken in order of arrival. Well, probably we were, but there were already a lot of people there ahead of us. When the end of the morning clinic arrived, we had still not been taken. We were then taken over to

a different consultorium, where the doctor there wrote out the prescriptions for us. Three hours total! If it weren't for the fact that the prescriptions save us probably $100 a month or more, we would just buy them at the pharmacy, where we would not need prescriptions in this country. While sitting waiting, Dan was reading a book in english. An elderly man well older than us, stopped and proceeded to chatter away to us in english! He opined about the situation with Korea and in the middle east. Later this day, in Fortín, Carmen was walking to our car by herself, leaving Dan in a paint store to buy sandpaper, when a fellow asked her in english how she was doing today. Never know who will be brave or sure of themselves enough to come up and speak english!

Tuesday the crew finished up painting in hallway, cut some electric conduit into the walls up to a new junction box that was embedded in the wall behind the water pump, under the hot water heater, and then also finished wiring in the lights in the bathroom. Later during the night, a front blew thru with very high winds that blew out one of the sheets of plywood that blocked off the window openings in the small bedroom. We were fearful of our new roof above the mirador, but checking it the next morning showed no damage, so the polycarbonate sheets have passed a significant endurance test.

Wednesday Ania and Frank were here for lunch. The crew finished touching up and texturing the south (former outside) wall in the new bathroom, as getting it dead smooth like the new walls seemed a long tedious task that we could avoid with a “rustic” finish there. Then the crew moved upstairs, and started on filling and scraping the walls in the master bedroom, with plans to be done on friday.

Thursday Dan and Luís walked around the house deciding what other supplies we need yet. Mauricio finished the barrandilla (railing) along the terraza above the bathroom. Dan wired up the water pump, and now the alcove housing the water heater can also serve as a broom closet, instead of stashing that stuff in the crack next to the refrigerator. We drove into Fortín to buy more supplies and there was a crowd of people in the park. Several buses parked nearby. Students were on a stage from different schools playing instruments. We really enjoyed the marimba band that played as we were leaving the Comex paint store. A few couples were dancing and all the people in the park seemed to be unable to not keep time with the music. No way one can hold still with this rhythmic music playing!

When we got back home, our carpenter was there, and he proceeded to mount the two small windows in the small bedroom. While the guys worked on finishing the walls in the master bedroom, Dan and Meltitón conferred on how best to take four inches off the steel door from Home Depot, so it would fit in the existing laundry room frame. We ended up cutting both faces of the door with the circular saw fitted with a metal-cutting abrasive disk (using a straight-edge jig held in place with clamps), then hack-sawing the two door stiles and slicing thru the foam inner core. Then Dan took out some foam at the bottom of the door with a rasp, and smoothed the cut metal edges with a file. Melitón extracted the bottom strip from the cut-off portion of the door, and glued it at the door bottom with some Gorilla glue. Everyone, including Luís who was checking out the progress, learned something new.

Saturday the guys arrived muy pronto and got back at the daunting task of scraping the old paint off the building and walls. For some reason, prior coats of paint must have been put on without a consistent coat of sellador (sealer), resulting in the paint's poor adhesion. This means that at certain places large sheets of latex paint can be peeled off in sections larger than several sheets of paper. In other spots the paint adheres very well and can't be removed. All this means they have to go over every inch of wall with scrapers and wire brushes. The wall, once scraped, will be smoothed, hopefully evening out the spots that still have paint with those scraped back to bare concrete, by applying a skim coat of fine white cement. Then all will be sealed, and a thinned cost of our selected blue paint will be applied, followed by a finish coat. These guys will have very strong wrists when this job is terminado.

Pisos terminados

(Domingo 14 - Sabado 20 Abril)   What can we say – work is chugging along. Luis pulled most of the electric wires thru the conduits that were embedded in the slab and walls in the new bathroom, and he or Dan will hook up the lights, outlets and switches sometime soon. Our crew will have their part of the new window openings and tiling about finished this week. We are both over our colds. All is well.

Wednesday our doorbell rang and there was a lady from Santa Cruz, California. She is here with the Jehovahs Witnesses, and she was not here to witness to us, but just to say hello. She is living in a small apartment in town, and heard there were folks here from the US, so she came looking for us. Now wasn't that a special event for us?

Carmen had her teeth cleaned at IMSS this week. No charge. We did a small amount of shopping. We decided to buy a ceiling fan for the master bedroom. This weeks temps have been HOT! Mid-60s nights and mid-90s days. These temps feel nothing like the discomfort of the northern midwest, with it's high summer humidity, that we remember from our younger years. The house retains quite a bit of “coolth” well into the day. At night sleeping is quite comfy with a light breeze blowing over us from the open, screened, windows.

Thursday the crew worked in 96 degree temps. Dan used some of the cooler morning hours to wire up the outlet and junction box that bring power up to the mirador. We can also plug in the pressure washer up there now, for roof cleaning. Also worked on outlets in the new bathroom. The loseta up on the terraza is all laid, including the small area over the laundry room, and a start was made on the floor for the laundry room. Heri and David worked on putting up the last section of cyclone fence on the high west wall, and stretching reinforcing wires top & bottom. Luis moved the extension ladder all along the periphery of the house and made an estimate of the new viga (roof beam) materials we will need to replace wood damaged by wood-eating insects. At the end of their ten hour day – watching them walk out to our car for a ride to catch their bus home, was like a miracle. They were all dancing and singing their way happily to the car, after that miserably hot day working in the sun!! Nice to have such a jubilant crew working with us!

Friday our crew was here, appreciating the very slightly lower temperature as it clouded up today. The floor tiles were grouted on the terraza, and the laundry room floor tiling and grouting was finished—we used the same pattern that we used in the new bathroom. All our finished pisos (floor) are done.  Holes were drilled in the curbing along the edge of terraza to mount the steel railing that will enclose the side overlooking the patio below. Our carpenter came in the afternoon to put the door in the bathroom. This used to be an outside door for the laundry room. Solid wood and a beauty, except the finish was damaged due to sun and water exposure. The door had to be totally stripped. Looks beautiful and will last forever as an interior door. The laundry room will get a steel entry door purchased from Home Depot.

Saturday our foreman and his wife made a trip to Oaxaca, so we had only a crew of three. They worked on painting and finishing up some masonry details. The carpenter trimmed the hallway door which rubbed on the floor at the bottom, and worked installing the inside window between the bath and laundry rooms. There was an exterior triple window there. Now there is a single pane window separating the two rooms, convenient for passing the laundry thru, and the other two windows will go in the exterior north wall in the smaller bedroom upstairs.

Cristales puestos

(Domingo 07- Sabado 13 Abril)   Not a good start this week. Dan started a headache saturday, which he just never has. Turned into a doozie of a head cold. He did not sleep at all sunday night. So Carmen sent him back to bed after he talked to the crew. He has them finalizing some interior painting, the two small bedroom windows, including building a curvy cement sill for each, and more tiling on the terraza.

A neighbor asked yesterday, why we built such a large mirador. It does rather stick out like a sore thumb at the moment, but it should look more nestled in when finished. Luís assured us that only a north american would build such a thing. However we first came across a high rooftop mirador at a hotel over near Xico – and we did enjoy sitting there in the evenings at a level with the birds soaring by, looking out over town and the surrounding green country and distant mountains.

We discovered a brand new Subway sandwich shop, sitting right next to our Banamex bank, when we went into the center of Fortín this week. Lots of business so far. Seems like this town is pretty small for a US chain such as this. People here do eat a lot of sandwiches though. Can't imagine that it will affect all the many tiny shops selling inexpensive sandwiches, as these subs cost the price of a whole meal, definitely a luxury item at this price level. Cost is MX$35 (US$2.75) to MX$59 (US$4.60) each. Someday we will have to have a couple to compare with the US. They smell just like they should.

We did make a drive into the city for building supplies at Home Depot and groceries at Walmart on tuesday. Dan was pleased that Carmen did all the driving – this is rare – since Dan was not feeling well yet.

The temps have been in low nineties in the shade this week. Unheard of except in may, so the locals tell us. Nights are only down to mid sixties. Carmen's favorite time of day is the hour after sunrise. This is the time to hang laundry out, water the outside plants and enjoy sitting on the bench out front while the kitties enjoy the area there. One morning the cats time was cut short by a large bird that did not appreciate their being outside in it's domain. The bird kept scolding and flying back and forth across the cats until they retreated into the house. Turns out that our beautiful blue flowers on the plumbago bush have sticky long stamens, which stick to the cats fur, which then get carried inside. There were a couple woodpeckers pecking away at our roof beams this week. Lots of birds around, which we can enjoy thru our opened windows every day.

Someone felt it necessary to cut the two large beautiful trees down from in front of the church, across the street and down a half-block from us to the north. We always hate to see trees cut down. What ever were they thinking? Surely God put those trees there for some good reason. Guess it could have been for the sole purpose of giving someone something to do. We had been keeping the street tidy from fallen leaves (using them for some of potted plants), so that was probably not why the trees were cut down.

Our crew took wednesday off for a memorial day for a brother of Heri who died a year ago. He had been out hiking by himself and apparently fell into a steep ravine. They searched for him for three days before finding his body. Work did continue at the house as the fence welding was finished, and then the welder attached the corrugated polycarbonate roofing up on top of the mirador structure with self-drilling screws with attached neoprene washers.

By 5pm the welders were finished with their two projects they were working on. We had thought the carpenter was coming, but no, so we put the car back in it's parking spot for the night. At six o'clock we got a surprise - - our cristal (flat glass) all arrived! That means one window, one aluminum door for the water heater alcove, one partition for the top of the kneewall at the end of the shower, and two domos (skylights)! Who would ever have guessed there would be two fellows, Lenny and helper, out there working this late. They got all the installations done before dark, leaving just some trim to be applied and sealed the next day.

Thursday at 7am Carmen was outside painting around the skylights, so that when the protective corner trim is put in, the paint there will be dry. This way when the house is painted, the workers will not get paint on the window edge. Carmen also painted our new house paint color around outside door frames before the trim went on. Dan's cold is much improved by now.

The crew of three is back today and worked on tiling, windows, and painting. David was missing and may be for a couple weeks. He got a bad leg sprain.

Friday we both had dental appointments. Two different dentists. Carmen for her new crowns and a bridge, which took three hours. Dan had cleaning and two fillings, then drove back to wait for Dr Soley to finish with Carmen. We rushed home, hoping to find the city engineer there. But it is another week that he did not show up. The carpenter was there, as he was saturday also. He installed the cabinets he had made for the bathroom. The designs Dan made look really good, now in place.

Saturday our crew was not here, because they had a family day cultivating their large garden plot of corn and beans. In the morning Frank had called and asked if we would like to go to Cosco with him. Carmen now had the cold so she decided to stay home and let the guys enjoy the day without female companionship, since Ania is still out of town for another week. Dan started cutting out the ceiling boards under the new skylight in the dining room, now that the glass was in place over the hole. The carpenter left by 12:30, after finishing on the cabinets, and then Dan cleaned up before walking over to the obra in Los Encinos, from where Frank would be leaving.

Frank's crew of three was just finishing up pouring concrete for the stairway incline running up the side of the new little bodega alongside the house. Heading north, we dropped the guys off for the bus to Coscomatepec, and first visited a country house Frank's cardiologist had built in the forest high above the Metlac river canyon, outside of Monte Blanco. Gerardo & Yvonne served up a bit of smooth tequila before a polite exit could be managed. Frank's purpose today was checking on both his properties outside of Cosco, and finding out whether Alejandro, the sawyer friend of our workers, was interested in some of the poles left from thinning out the pine hillsides near the Xaltenango hexagon cabin.

Past the huge cut-back hill of gravel and sand that gave the place it's nauahtl name, on the way up the road the car passed our three workers (Luís, Heri & Alfonso) trudging back from the milpa (cornfield) with their azadones (large-headed hoes). Their tools were put in the trunk and they were transported the rest of the way up to their little community of houses, beyond which Frank's hilltop property lies. Dan and Frank came back relaxed and happy from their adventures, sometime after 6pm. They had picked a quart of blackberries at the cabin, and some of the giant lemons, which will probably end up in another pie. In western Washington state, we always had ripe, flavorful, blackberries in the fall, but these were almost as good.

Pay de limón

Domingo 31 Marzo – Sábado 06 Abril   This week has simply whizzed past. Dan has been bouncing around like a ball. He would no sooner sit, than one of the workers would need his thoughts, or a tool, or a decision to be made. Carmen on the other hand, merely mopped the house, got meals, did laundry and read a 600 page novel.

Tuesday morning at 7am, Carmen called Frank, thinking that Ania was gone from home for a week, she'd invite him for lunch. Normally would never call someone that early, but his cell phone was turned off, and we wanted to catch him before he packed a lunch for the day. As it turned out, Ania answered the phone! Now that was a surprise! After a dumbfounded silence, Carmen laughed and gave her reason for calling. Ania does not leave 'til next saturday. She said she just could not sleep, so she had been up since 3am cooking, would we like to come there for dinner? Of course! Okay, we went there and took the meringue pie Carmen had made. Good time was had by all, though we did have to cut it short to get back to our crew. Now the pie – Carmen had been thinking about a lime pie. Turned out that we had only half enough juice, so she added fresh orange juice with it. This made the pie too sweet, since the sugar was, of course, portioned for lemons. Good texture and flavor none the less. Why is it that lemons are limas in Mexico & Guatemala, and limes are limónes, yet the "-ón" suffix is augmentative, meaning something bigger?

Every day this week, we had two welders here. They worked on finishing up the mirador structure on the rooftop, and then on the fencing around the yard, installing intermediate vertical bars to make the spacing more narrow. The change is an improvement, now we don't have to stay outside with the cats, to watch that they don't exit onto the street. They both seem to understand the change, and seem more comfortable being outside now. They can now sit there and not be bothered by the appearance of dogs, which before, the cats would dash back inside every time a dog came past. Now that was a lot of dashing!

One day the carpenter was here, removing the door from the laundry/workshop, to take home and refinish. We had hoped he would put the bathroom cabinets in, but he did not bring them, and, also, we decided we wanted another coat of paint on the walls first. Having the guys do this is strange for Carmen, who used to do all our painting, and now does close to none.

Our crew varied during the week. Wednesday, Heri was home sick and Luís our foreman had to leave after the first three hours to help his brother Ausencio with tiling a bathroom, a few houses down from us. Luis also worked on the brothers' job for another 7 hours on thursday. Thursday we also lost David for two hours for the final push on that job, so Ausencio could get paid. Back on our projects here, they finished off the large ventana (window) in our large bedroom, and then cut out the holes for the two smaller windows in the smallest bedroom. Kitties get closed into the medium bedroom where we are sleeping, when the inside of house is being worked on. Lots more painting done in bathroom, although the hallway remains half-done.

Time to buy our exterior house paint. After much debating, Saturday we made a color choice and bought a gallon, and got a liter free. But, we really did not like it once a strip was painted on the house. Just does not look like the sample card. Went back to Comex store and bought two more liters of slightly different tints. We're looking for a blue-gray. Between the three, we have chosen their blue “Ebro” tint. Now if we figure out how much we will need, and purchase it before next friday, we will get a gallon free for every large 19 liter bucket we purchase.

Semana Santa

Domingo 24– Sábado 30 Marzo 2013.  This was a slow week, due to weather and the Easter holidays,    with little of note that happened. So we'll dispense with our usual day-by-day commentary.  Our house renovation work has moved back outdoors, since the new bathroom is mostly finished. After a progressively more rainy sunday, our crew called in monday morning experiencing a steady downpour at home up in Coscomatepec, on the slopes of Orizaba, to say they would not be in that day.

They did opt for a chance at better weather here in Fortin the next day. However, it was still intermittently wet, so Dan suggested that the two guys not finishing the bathroom and tilework should attack the task of taking out part of the wall in the master bedroom. This is where the other window we removed to make a space for the terraza door will go. The guys were happy to get in out of the rain, since most of the demolition could take place from inside. Our pile of escombro (construction debris) at the side of the road is growing larger. Despite being sheltered most of the time, they were soaked by the end of the workday.

Wednesday was supposed to be a replay, with rain in the forecast, so when they left tuesday night they said if it was raining the next morning, we wouldn't see them until the following week. Seems they celebrate La

Pascua (Easter) season very seriously down here, from holy (aka, maundy) thursday thru Easter sunday. However, after a cloudy beginning here, and presumably rain up in Cosco since the guys didn't show up, wednesday turned out to be beautiful. Our welder, Mauricio, spent the day working on welding the structural skeleton for the mirador shelter's roof.

We have seen many processions of people thruout these last four celebrated days of Semana Santa (holy week). Some of but a few people, and some with a crowd stretching out a couple blocks long. People singing, bearing liturgical images, statues and crosses, usually adorned with flowers and fabrics. People carry candles when the processions are at night. Since we are contraesquina (kitty-corner) from the new La Trinidad chapel, the processions often pass by the house.

On thursday, even though the crew didn't show up, late in the day our carpenter Meliton, came to install the two puertas we had salvaged from the set of french doors off the dining area. He had stripped them, filled out the grooves where their styles joined, and refinished them. He reset the sheets of glass we had been storing and rehung the doors, one at the end of the passageway near the new bathroom, and the other in the master bedroom, and then installed the new locksets. Dan reinstalled the protection bars that we had repainted earlier, on each door. The welder has continued on the mirador all day. Both craftsmen returned on friday, and we had Mauricio here again on saturday finishing up the mirador superstructure.

Despite the sometimes cloudy days and precipitation, we are enjoying the climate here.  Being from the wet side of Washington State, we would surely miss the clouds, and the rain here just rolls off our backs.  Many locals carry umbrellas when the weather is inclement, but our long years in the PNW have trained us well on how to dodge between the drops, and how to find things indoors to do when it really pours. We are grateful for the flores this town is known for, and the front yard is colorful thruout the year, with the bugambilia always showing it's colors, and the plumbago, repeatedly showing its lilac-colored blooms  that come out after we cut it back regularly.  We will certainly miss our lilac hedge in Anacortes, but since the city there put in the front sidewalk, all that was left of that is a few small rescued reminders of it's former glory.

Our Gardi cat has escaped from our front yard twice this week, exploring the area outside the fence. Once he was sitting in the back area, just waiting for Carmen to come pick him up. The other time we found him on the sidewalk on the north side of the house. He saw Dan and was so happy to see him. So – kitty no longer gets to go outside 'til the extra rods have been welded into the fence to make the openings narrow enough to be cat-proof. Gardi is sulking. Smij continues to sleep in her drawer under the bed during the day. Wonder where she will go when the workers are cutting thru the wall to install the two small windows (salvaged from the laundry room) in her chosen retreat room?