April 2011 - the bathroom edition

Returned again April 27th (Jim only this time) with the goal of participating in the Alazan Homeowners meeting.  Rented a Dihatsu Terrios; a little 4 door 4x4 you'll see in the photos included in this blog series, although not this particular posting. 

 

Aside from the meeting, we found some window film online that we thought would look great in Bath#2 which suffers from lack of privacy.  This first photo shows some of the progress.  The film is wickedly easy to apply; and looks great.  The significant features of this photo however are that the toilet is installed and vanity cabinet in place, with counter top on and tiled.  

The other sort of fun feature of this trip was OBTAINING teak ripped to the dimensions needed to build this corner cabinet.  Of great note was finding "Edgar".  When we met and began exchanging numbers he told me his friends call him "Kio" and that he would like it if I did too.  So from then on Kio was his name.  He is an interesting man.  Very handsome, great shape but with one leg.  He lost his other in a motorcycle crash four years ago.  But his attitude on it is amazing.  Positive guy; keeps on keepin on.  A good new friend that hopefully will be a topic of future blogs.  

Also set in place the towel bars, corner shower shelf and shower trim.  Significant about this final photo though is that you can see the opening that the Teak shelf closes up.  That will give plumbing access too.  

So Jim departed this trip with bathroom #2 functioning, with just a few more details, and of course towels, to finish it all off.

More in a week or so on the April trip....

Jim (and Dick)

At last! Post for February 2011

After a way too long hiatus we finally returned to our little casa in February 2011.  The thirteen months prior were our little midlife medical nightmare, but all is well now.

We found the San Jose airport remodel, which always greeted us with new temporary passageways; finally finished with a beautiful and well organized immigration and customs area.  Impressive, easy.  

Jim's goals for the trip was to improve the Alazan Internet; get bedroom #2 and bath #2 finished, do the final touches to finish the laundry; and get bedroom #3 and bath #3 ready for stucco and tile.  Rather ambitious goals; complete with Jim's nearly famous spreadsheet breaking down the hours...  sigh....  

So he needed a lesson, that it is not the completing, but the doing...  

We got to our little casa in our t iiiiii n eeeee little Suzuki Jimmy.  Quite a study in small 4x4 vehicles.  Our luggage barely fit.  But we got there nonetheless.  It was good to be back.  Weather was lovely; AC was broken.  Then we checked out the tile work and stucco that was done since our January 2010 trip; only to find that level covered with white dusty mold/mildew.  So Jim's goals had to start revising right away.

  But with both our hard work, we did accomplish quite a bit; albeit less than the list.  We spent a full day cleaning up mold with bleach water.  And setting in place dehumidifiers to dry things out.  Jim built a wall hung bath vanity cabinet; Dick stained it with the little remaining stain we had left from a prior trip.  And we found with bleaching we needed more stain.  Unfortunately, the ferriteria was out of that stain; and didn't even know what a toggle bolt was.  So that put both of those in a wait state.  But we did get the rooms painted, set the laundry sink, and painted that room; and that vanity cabinet is built.  Good progress anyway!

The furniture cleaned up well, and will just need a light staining to finish the job.  We'll also do something Jose, our furniture builder didn't do, and apply polyurethane to finish the furniture.









When we left we had put the ceiling structure (wood 2x2's in a cross pattern to add space below the steel construction.  Jim had installed a camera system with three of the potential for 8 cameras working.  The network was improved with a great signal inside the house.

We were frequently visited by our neighborhood monkeys (we are, afterall, in the jungle).  We managed to get this photo of one that was particularly curious about "those other monkeys" on the upper veranda.

So all in all, a very successful trip with the lesson to put the detail goals aside, and just enjoy the time; making whatever progress can happen.

Jim and Dick
aka
Ricardo y Jeeeeem

Rainy Season coming to and end...

Our October trip was right at the end of the rainy season - and it gave us a chance to enjoy some of the specatular lightning shows, and intense rains.


These first two photos are looking down from the top most veranda to the edge of our driveway, seeing the intense water rushing there.






This actually is a bit of a concern for us since it will be important for us to add significant erosion control. We notices the permanent ruts from this in our January 2010 trip. So some solutions to do there...

This last photo is of the waterfall adjacent to our land; and from whence the Casa Torrente de Agua comes from.

Thanks for reading!

Jim and Dick

Dining at Home - Photo blog

Killing the Tree of Life

Hey all, one of our issues locally in Playon Sur Parrita Costa Rica is that Frutas Selectas del Tropico replanted the pineapple plantation at the base of our mountain with bananas.



Soon after the baby banana plants were growing, they put in the ILLEGAL airstrip for their crop duster. Now, on one hand, they are wickedly inconsiderate, starting up at 5:11am and spraying till about 9:00am nearly every day. The biplane has no muffler, and can be quite irritating.



But, bananas don't grow well naturally in Central America, and require annually increasing doses of fungicide to remain productive. The fungicide they use is extremely toxic, and damaging to surrounding property. Our own workers vehicles paint has been destroyed in just a couple of passes of the plane. The pilot isn't careful, and sprays this poison on their own workers in their feilds, on school children on their way to local schools, and on cars, pedestrians, etc on the main road adjacent to the banana plantation.

A year ago our community began checking out the operation there, and found that Frutas Selectas Del Tropico put this airstrip in illegally, with no approval for their air operation. They've paid off local officials to continue operation after we, working with our Tico neighbors, brought this to the attention of the national authorities.



During our January trip, we had some relief, with the pilot not starting operation so very early. But nonetheless, he did spray.





From our veranda (living room) we have a way-too-good view of the illegal airstrip. In these photos, you can see the plane spraying the field below. Notice the tree in the first photo. Its shape reminded us of The Tree of Life.

You can see him applying spray right by it.



While our local community (Alazan, Playon Sur, El Tigre and Parrita) have made headway; this situation is by no means resolved. We would like Frutas Selectas Del Tropico to choose another crop whose maintenance does not pose local human and wildlife health and safety hazards.



We've learned that the major purchaser of these local products is Del Monte Fresh Produce. We have mailed a locally (Costa Rica local) video to Del Monte and ask our friends to write to them, pointing our that their grower is posing environmental hazards to an otherwise quiet group of communities in Costa Rica.





Thanks.



Jim and Dick

New View Photos

The January trip was filled with amazing weather. It was clear and sunny the whole time, with fog some of the nights, but no rain.


This little photo series just shows some of the great open views with the clearing so far. There won't be much more, but we sure enjoyed the breeze that this bit of work has brought to the living room veranda.

This afternoon photo is very similar to the one below, but you can see how hazy it got over the coastline with the humidity that rose that day.

This last photo really captured the horizon line and clouds looking south over the pacific. It was a great morning shot!

View Clearing

During our January 2010 trip we spent a good amount of time working on clearing some of our view scapes.

One of the challenges of carving out a home site in the jungle is that the trees are filled with bajuca vines - the sort Tarzan used to swing from tree to tree in the jungle movies of old.

In previous trips we spent time clearing, and this was no exception. this top photo is of a helper we hired who was good at climbing trees. We had cut the vines off at the ground during our October 2009 trip, and had thought they would die off and fall. But in this case, they had twisted around the branches, and showed no signs of dropping. So we sent our hired helper up on our extension ladder and climbing gear to cut and untwist all the vines to clear the tree.


This second photo is the before shot.

This third photo is the after shot. As is often the case, we clear one only to find more to clear. But; our goal is to open up, not to have no folliage at all. After all, our monkey friends need this as well!

The whole clearing event took about 3 hours, and while the tree was being cleared, Dick was hard at work electric chain saw at hand trimming down below.

Meanwhile, I watched one of our other Tico workers sharpen a machete using an electric hand grinder. Pretty slick result so I got out our grinder, put the right wheel on it and did all three of our machete's. They've never been sharper. Ah, yes, better living with electricity!!! So we both took turns chopping and clearing vines further left of our viewscape, that should afford better views on our next visit.

Thanks for reading!

Jim and Dick