My Shop ~ Part 7 ~ Electrical, Repello (Stucco) & Pizza

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With the completion of the repello (stucco) on the interior shop walls, Armando and Sammy moved operations to the bathroom walls. Because the bathroom is so small, there was no room for me to to help.

I’ve found over the years that working in small rooms and closets doing tasks such as putting up drywall or painting can be more difficult than working in a larger space. There are still the same number of walls, angles, and corners but there is little room to turn around after you get tools and a ladder inside the space. So Armando was on his own in the “phone booth” bathroom and Sammy kept him supplied with mezcla (mortar mix).

While they were doing the repello, I took a day and cleaned up the repello-ed walls in my shop. There were some trowel marks, rough spots, and small pimples that I wanted to get rid of so the walls would take a nice finish. I have a wet angle grinder and a set of diamond polishing pads. I put the 50-grit pad on the machine and passed it over every square inch of the walls. Here’s the grinder, Hellcat brand; you hook a garden hose up to it, plug it into the wall, and try not to shock the hell out of yourself:

The grinder did a great job, leaving the walls quite smooth and ready to finish.

I’d been having a back and forth debate with myself on whether to paint the walls white or to coat them with a clear acrylic polymer. The white would be nice for light reflection, but it would get dirty very quickly with all the welding and grinding going on in the shop. Also, a good quality paint would cost a hundred bucks or more, and the paint would hide the nice look of the repello-ed walls. Ultimately, the polymer won out and I applied two coats (about $25) with a sponge that same day and the next morning. Here’s the polymer:

The guys were still doing well on their own so I decided to start the interior wiring. Before we laid the concrete block walls, I had decided that I would surface mount the electrical boxes on the walls rather than build the boxes into the walls. I’ve pulled covers off of built-into-the-wall boxes and they are all nasty with rust and corrosion from the concrete.

So after I applied the two coats of polymer sealer, I struck a level line around the shop walls for the receptacle and switch boxes. Even though they are a lot more expensive, I decided to use weatherproof exterior boxes because they won’t rust and there are no holes for spiders to enter and make cozy little nests. In this next photo I have drilled two 1/4-inch holes in the wall and am tapping in screw anchors, called tacos here.

I drilled two holes in each of the boxes and screwed them to the walls. The boxes have little lugs on the back that stand the box off the wall, so I ran a bead of gray urethane caulk around the boxes to seal yet more spider hideouts. I hate to reach for a plug and put my hand in a spider web. You can get some nasty spider bites here in the tropics.

Then I measured and cut PVC conduit and clamped it to the walls and ran it across the floor as needed. I chose PVC conduit because metal conduit would rust fairly quickly, especially under the concrete floor slab. 

I also mounted boxes for lights on the ceiling. Even though I like 4-foot strip fluorescent fixtures, I decided to use individual fluorescent bulbs because the electronics in strip fixtures get blown by the uneven electrical current here. Cynthia helped me pull wires through the conduit. You can also see how nice the concrete walls look; they have a slight shine that you can see on the wall at the left of the window blocks in the photo above.

By the time the electrical was to the point that the concrete floor could be poured, the guys were done with the bathroom walls and some other small details. But before the floor, it was time to repello the exterior walls. The exterior walls are larger than one man can repello in a day and I didn’t want any “cold” stop/start joints so I had to pitch in and sling mud with Armando. Now I can get another dollar a day in my pay envelope because Armando taught me how to apply the repello. Repello-ing is hard work!

Years ago when I was carpentering for a living, someone asked me if it was hard to install a window. I said, “No, not as long as you know what you are doing!” It’s not the same with repello. Even if you know what you are doing, it is still damn hard work.

As of today we have the back side, the east side, and the front side all repello-ed, leaving only the west side that we will tackle tomorrow if I can get out of bed. For the east side, we didn’t start our work day until 11:00 a.m. so that the sun would have time to pass overhead and we could work on the wall in shadow. We finished about 6:00, at which time I flopped into my hammock for the rest of the night. I think Cynthia hooked me up to an IV frijole dip drip so I could get some nutrition while I slept. Here is a photo of the front and east walls just after I hosed them down to help them cure:

There is a tradition here in Panama that when a roof goes on, you have a roof party. So last Friday was the day. I knocked the guys off at 12:30 for a pizza lunch and the rest of the day off. Cynthia and Cedelinda had been making the dough and preparing the toppings:

It’s my job to cook the pizzas. Our fancy Bompani oven isn’t up to the task of cooking pizzas, so some time ago I went down the hill and bought some locally-made firebricks. I cut them in half with my tile saw. Then I lined our BBQ grill with the half-bricks. Like this:

A half-hour preheat turns the BBQ into a Jim Dandy 500-600 degree pizza oven. By the way, I don’t know who Jim Dandy was, and I didn’t know whether to capitalize it or not, so I Googled it. It’s capitalized. And while looking, I found a Jim Dandy BBQ restaurant in Cincinnati, Ohio. Who’d a known. I wonder if they do pizza. Anyway, a big shout out to Jim Dandy’s even though I am a 30+year vegetarian. I love Google!

At this point I put the camera down and started cooking. Cynthia’s pizzas are works of art. I got busy cooking and then planted my face in my pizza and completely forgot to take photos of the finished pizzas. Trust me, they were beauties.

We bought about a dozen pizza pans, the kind that have hundreds of 3/8-inch holes on the bottom. The crusts get nice and brown and the pizzas don’t stick to the pans. We like to have build-your-own pizza parties every year on my birthday. That and homemade chocolate cake makes me happy to be a year older. Or at least I don’t notice.

Anyway, the roof party was a delicious success. The guys were stuffed to their shirt collars and got to take home leftovers. The first time we made pizza for a work crew here each man took a slice. They clearly liked it but were too shy to take more. We had to order them to eat more, at which point they loosened up. It was great fun to see them egging each other on to eat yet another slice. There were lots of jokes about not having to eat for a week and not being able to work because they were too full.

That’s all for now. Maybe next week we can think about pouring the floor in my shop. Stay tuned.

My Shop ~ Part 6 ~ The Roof

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Now that the dry season is here, we are making good progress on my shop. All the interior walls are repello-ed (stuccoed) and the roofing metal has been delivered. Here are some photos of walls being finished:

Armando works a wall

We call this little closet "the phone booth"

Gusty winds come with the dry season, so we geared up with ropes and clamps and extra bodies to keep the 24-foot-long roof panels from blowing away. Here we are placing the first panel on the east side of the shop:

Armando and I place the first panel. Gloves are mandatory when working with these over sized razor blades.

Up goes the second panel

After lifting and placing each panel, Sammy and I go up on the roof. He sits on the bottom end of the metal to keep it from becoming airborne, and I take a straight edge and a Sharpie marker and mark locations for screws. Armando follows me, placing a few screws to keep the panel in place.

Break time at the half way mark. Sunglasses are mandatory while working on the highly reflective roofing. Later, much later, the roof will extend out another 15 feet over the carport.

After all the panels were in place, Armando and Sammy went back over the roof and placed the missing screws. What a beautiful day in the tropics!

I included a six-foot roof overhang on the west end of the shop. Below the roof there will be an outside sink, a clothes line, and space for potting plants, etc. It is also a place that Armando can wait out a rainy season deluge. Maybe a hammock is in order:

The larger window is in my shop, the smaller window is in the bathroom.

Here are some inside shots with the roof on:

Now that the roof is finished, I can remove the temporary center stick. It reduced the bounce while working on the roof.

We were finished with the roof about 2:30 so I sent the guys home. Armando proclaims the roof “listo” (LEEZ-to — done, ready):

Will he walk the plank?

Tomorrow Armando and Sammy will go back to repello-ing the remaining bathroom walls.

My job for the day will be to clean up the repello on the interior walls. There are some trowel marks and a few rough edges here and there that need attention before paint. I’m going to start out using a wet angle grinder with a diamond polishing wheel and we’ll see how it goes.

After cleaning up the walls, I’ll make the final decision — white paint or clear polymer finish? I’m leaning toward the polymer as it won’t show the inevitable scuff marks, although the white would make the shop a bit brighter.

After the walls are finished, I can mount the electrical boxes and conduit. I plan on running most of the conduit under the floor slab. I don’t like horizontal conduit because it is a dust collector.

Then we can pour the floor slab and make the front door. Move in is in sight!

That’s all for now. Arf!

Bonus photos:

 

 

 

How To Not Work

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This morning Cynthia and I were eating breakfast. Being the day after New Year’s Day, we had a high degree of doubt that Armando and Sammy would show for work due to, well, it was the day after a big holiday and there probably was a whole lot of celebrating going on. Plus it is Monday, the most difficult day of the week for them to get a bus out from town because so many people are traveling back to the city.

For a couple years now, Armando has been keeping a lot of his chickens here at Cynthia’s and my rental house. He lives up against a mountain, and mountain cats (tigres) frequent his neighborhood at night looking for tasty morsels, i.e. his chickens.

It is the custom here in the interior of Panama for chickens to roam totally free. Ours show up at our back door every morning and every evening and hoot and holler until we throw corn to them. We throw just enough for that meal. If we put out a large amount, it would only draw other birds, rats, snakes, and who knows what else. The chickens sleep in the trees at night and can easily fly to the roof of our house.

Cynthia has had her favorites including Joe, Helen, and now Chicken Cheeks. She encourages Armando not to prematurely take them home for chicken soup. When Armando wants to catch one of the chickens for dinner, he and I run around the yard like chickens ourselves until we get one of them cornered. It is good exercise at the end of a long day of welding.

We have had as many as thirty, splitting themselves into two flocks; one inside the fence and one outside. Currently we are down to five, although one has been missing the past few weeks.

Back to breakfast, Cynthia and I were just finishing when we heard a chicken clucking and chicks peeping. You never know where the hens will hide to lay their eggs, so we followed the peeps to our storage room that we made in a semi-enclosed outdoor kitchen. On my hands and knees, I found mom and four chicks tucked in a corner, well protected by storage boxes. She was still sitting on at least two more eggs.

I made a quick drive to town and bought some baby chick feed, a finely-ground corn with some supplements added. The chicks were starting to wander afield, so I sprinkled some of the feed near mom and moved the little fluffies back to mom.

Here’s a video of mom and her brood:

Now it is 9:30, well past the acceptable time for me to go to work on the house. Cynthia suggested that we take down the Christmas tree, so that sounds like a plan for the day. And I’ll keep checking on mom to see how the remaining eggs are progressing.

Update ~ 10:00 a.m.: Chicken Mom has decided to venture outside to the back door. Three of her four followed her, and we still heard peeping in the storeroom. I went in and found that two of her now five chicks had become lost in the maze of boxes. Chicken moms aren’t the sharpest crayon in the box. I scooped them up and moved them to mom by the back door.

I made an InstaCoop to protect the newlings from the local eagles and other flying predators.

Soon, though, they will be on their own, taking their chances at survival just as you and I do every day. It’s a jungle out there and for us here in Panama, it is only a few feet away.

Speaking of Chicken Mom, it reminds me of the Chickenman radio series from the ’60s. Short episodes of silliness.

That’s all for now. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find another reason not to work.

 

My Shop ~ Part 5 ~ Rafters & Repello

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Try as I might, I just can’t get to spend much time working on the windows in the house. Armando has been working at a good pace now that the rainy season is on its way out, the transition to the dry/windy season seems nearly complete. A week ago we had five days of full-on rain, then it stopped and it has been sunny and breezy most days with brief showers now and then. With Armando’s speedy progress, the shop needs more of my attention.

The concrete block walls are now all up and the last beam has been poured.

The walls are up and the last beam is curing.

Main beam: In my last post, Three Reasons Why I Like Panama, I brought home on the roof of the Honda two, 40-foot 2″x4″ metal carriolas. I’m still glowing from the experience. These carriolas are for the center beam in the shop. I spent one entire day cutting them to 35-feet, then welding them together with inch-long welds every foot or so to make a 4″x4″ beam. I made caps for the ends to keep bees and other critters from occupying the inside of the beam. To make the caps, I took a scrap piece of 2″x4″ carriola and cut two, three-and-seven-eights-inch pieces off of the end. I tapped these pieces into the ends of the beam and welded around the perimeter. A light grind with the angle grinder finished the seams. Then I wire brushed all the welds and applied a few coats of polyurethane red oil primer. Here’s the beam:

The shop is 20-feet front to back, but I made the beam 35-feet so it would overhang the front of the shop 15-feet. This overhang will be part of the carport roof later.

The next day Armando, Sammy, and I lifted the beam into place and I welded it to the rebar protrusions that we had embedded into the concrete beams at the tops of the walls.

Repello: As I welded, Armando and Sammy started stuccoing (repello (rey-PAY-oh) in Spanish). The repello is simply a cement rich mix of cement and fine sifted sand. They applied the mix with trowels. After it set a while they struck the wall smooth with a length of 1″x3″ board, then using a wooden float they swirled the wall with big circular strokes to even everything out. Later they steel troweled the wall.

While they troweled the wall, some areas were a little dry so they sprinkled them with water, and other areas were a little too wet so they tossed a bit of dry cement at the areas. The finished repello has a mottled two-toned effect. I kind of like the effect and I am not yet sure if I will paint the walls a color or coat them with a clear polymer. I asked for a baby-bottom smooth finish and this is pretty much what they are doing. Here’s the repello underway:

Roof framing: While the guys applied the repello, I got busy welding the metal carriola roof joists to the building. When we made the forms for the two side walls, I cut four-inch lengths of wooden 2″x4″s and nailed them between the form boards every two feet. This made pockets for the joists to sit in. After we stripped the forms and knocked the wooden blocks out, the beams looked like this:

Before we nailed the wooden blocks in place, I had already welded together and placed in the form work a rebar assembly that would embed in the concrete beam and have a four-inch length of rebar sticking up right next to each of the wooden blocks. The rebar looked kind of like this: |_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|_______|

This is so that I could weld each end of the joists to the rebar, thereby firmly connecting the roof to the walls and keeping it from blowing off. We get some pretty wild gusts here and it is not uncommon for an entire roof to blow off.

In fact, there is a Panamanian joke. Most Panamanian houses are relatively small. Tiny, in fact. The joke goes like this:

  • Armando: That was a really strong wind we had last night. It blew the roof right off my house!
  • Me: Oh no, how awful! What will you do?
  • Armando: Oh don’t worry, I found it and put it back on.

Here’s a photo of the roof joists all welded in place:

It took me two days to get all the joists welded into place. I still need part of a day to clean up the welds and apply a few coats of paint to prevent rust and corrosion.

Dealing with rain running off the roof: When it rains, a lot of water will get dumped at the back side of the shop where it would no doubt seep through the foundation and wall into my shop. So while Armando doesn’t need Sammy to mix and deliver repello or to work a trowel, we have him digging a drainage ditch across the back of the shop and then down hill to the front of the lot.

At first his ditch was like a line of wet spaghetti, but I asked Armando to straighten him out a bit. Now Sammy can be proud of his ditch that is totalmente recta (totally straight).

We are finding that a lot of our plants are not doing well because the soil is so very soggy so much of the year. So Armando directed Sammy to dump the excess dirt in the big garden at the front of the house. Eventually the plants will become elevated above the high water table.

Overview: Some time ago one of the Lynns who comments regularly wanted an overview photo of the job site. Here you go. This photo was taken from the road to the east, through our neighbor’s lot. I sure would like to get some unifying color painted on the exterior of the containers and my shop, but that will have to wait.

That’s all for now. Happy new year!

 

Three Reasons Why I Like Panama

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Cynthia and I are really enjoying our life in Panama. It is very different from what we are used to and it seems that something interesting is always happening. Here are three recent things that made me smile.

Thing number 1. Christmas night at about 9:00, Cynthia and I were sitting in the living room. We heard a rattle-trap of a car come to a stop on the main road in front of our house. Jabo went ballistic. I heard the hood creak open and then the trunk, and there was a lot of chatter between a man and a woman. Obviously, the car had broken down.

It was dark and I could see that they were trying to rebuild the engine or something with the only light coming from a cell phone. So I grabbed my LED three-battery MagLite and went out to see if I could help.

I’d seen the car on the road many times, often stopped for repairs. It was an old Toyota with nearly all the paint gone due to its advanced age. I worked the flashlight beam in the trunk as he sorted through a big bag of used parts looking for a set of points that might be serviceable for the distributor. Ahh, here’s one!

I illuminated under the hood as he pulled the plug wires and the distributor cap. He popped in the new old set and wallah — I said wallah — Nothing. The car just cranked when he turned the key. It didn’t start. So we did this trunk-to-hood-to-trunk-to-hood dance for an hour, replacing nearly everything except the air in the tires.

Finally, when he was ready to give up and move the car off the road (I was ready to offer them a ride home because there were no more buses at that hour), I said, “What about the condenser?” Ahh, back to the trunk to find a condenser that seemed serviceable, and low and behold, the car fired up on the next try! He asked me how much I wanted for helping him. I said, in Spanish, “Are you kidding me? It’s Christmas night!” With many thanks from them both, they rattled off on their way.

The next day, the car returned and pulled in our driveway. The man gave us an armload of yucca and a big hand of bananas. These people who have next to nothing could not be faulted for taking, taking, taking. But they didn’t. They wanted to make sure that they thanked me to the best of their ability. I’m very appreciative.

Now, had this been in the States, the guy would probably just have called AAA and I never would have offered my help. That’s recent reason number one that I like living here.

Going along with reason number one, I should probably say that I know nothing about how cars work. I can do carpenter stuff and metal stuff and a lot of computer stuff, but mechanical stuff has evaded me. How I knew to suggest the condenser is beyond me. Before my auto mechanics crash course on Christmas night, I was kind of like Goldie Hawn and friends in this old Rowan & Martin Laugh In skit:

But in that hour and a half by the side of the road Christmas night, I learned more about automobile mechanics than ever before in my life. What an education.

Thing number 2. Every year between Christmas and New Years, muñecas (moon-yek-ahs) appear at the roadside throughout Panama. Muñecas are life-size dolls that people make and put in front of their houses. There is often a theme, such as political, entertainment, things you want next year, or things you want to never see again. The muñecas are stuffed with firecrackers, and they are lit ablaze on New Year’s Eve. Here are some photos I took today on my way to Coronado:

Thing number 3. If you think you can get away with something here in Panama, you are generally free to try.

Yesterday, I needed to go to town and buy two 40-foot 2″x4″ carriolas. This would be a long load for the Honda, but it would be two days before the store could deliver them. So, I did the Panamanian thing and said, “Load ‘em up!” Everyone at the hardware store was cheering me on for my bravery/stupidity. We tied a red flag at the back and off I went, long load hanging fore and aft, smiling at/to myself all the way. I have proof — here is a video of the three-kilometer drive from the edge of El Valle to our house. El Valle, by the way, is located in a volcano, so the drive home is uphill all the way, about 300 feet in elevation gain. I thought you might enjoy seeing the scenery in our neck of the woods. There is no audio in this video.

Even though there is a tremendous amount of government red tape here in Panama, life feels more free to live without undue interference. My example is that if you were manufacturing ladders in the States, you would cover them with every conceivable label warning of impending dismemberment or death. If you were manufacturing that same ladder here in Panama, just stick a label on it that says, “ladder” and be done with it. But be very aware, that with all the freedom comes a real need to be vigilant at all times. I recently read of a woman walking in the dark in Panama City who dropped fifteen-feet into an open manhole. One of the reasons I got my new dash cam is to potentially have a video record in the event of an accident where someone veers over the double yellow line on a blind curve. Happens every day.

That’s all for now.

 

Windows ~ Part 2 ~ Frames Welded

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It has been a while since I started the windows. This has been a big job with hundreds and hundreds of welds and a massive amount of grinding the welds smooth. Working long periods of time with the angle grinder is a problem for me because in the ’70s, I fell off a roof and broke a bone in my right wrist; the bone never healed and is a constant source of pain when I flex my wrist. Because a one-piece bone is in two pieces, my wrist is more and more dislocated as the years go on. So I grind some, take a break then grind some more. I have also been helping Armando with the technical stuff of the shop, such as making sure the roof is the correct pitch, so the windows are taking the time they are taking.

Every window will have two frames; one inside to hold the glass, and a second frame outside to hold the security bars. So far, I have all the frames and security bars welded and ground smooth. A lot of the welds would look even better with some auto body filler (commonly called Bondo), so I am nearing the end of applying and sanding the filler. Here’s what my pile of metal looks like at this point:

A few frames are missing from the photo as they are still on the workbench. You can see that I have taken the design of the curved lines of the cat tails on our front gate and replicated them into the security bars.

My current window-related project is making hinges. I want to be able to open the security bar frames to make window washing and security bar maintenance painting easier. I could have bought some stock steel hinges, but I have seen how thieves easily knock out the hinge pin (even if it is tack welded in place) and gain access to the house. My hinges are a bit beefier. I started with a length of 1/2″ black iron pipe. I spot welded a piece of 1/8″x1″ metal strap iron to the pipe. After cleaning the welds with the angle grinder, I applied two coats of body filler. It looked like this with the first coat of filler being applied:

Then I sanded the assembly smooth with a sandpaper disk on the grinder and cut the 20-foot strip into a whole bunch of 4-inch lengths. I ground the cuts smooth with the grinder. At the bottom of the next photo I show three hinge leaves with a piece of 1/2″ rebar threaded through the leaves. I’ll weld the two ends of the rebar to the leaves, leaving the middle leaf to swing free. Here is the pile of hinge parts:

So that’s where I am with the windows. I hope to get the hinges welded to the frames this week. I still have to fashion a way to lock the security bar frames, but I can see that soon I’ll be cutting holes for the windows in the container walls.

That’s all for now.

My Shop ~ Part 4 ~ Walls And Beams

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Prognosticators who get paid to make scientific wild guesses say that we are in a wet La Nina weather pattern. This time they seem to be right because the rainy season shows little sign of giving way to the nearly constant sunshine of the dry season that usually starts like clockwork on December 15th. But still, we are making some construction progress, just not as fast or in as pleasant conditions as we would like.

For my shop, Armando has been working his way up the block walls.

Concrete block walls in Panama are topped off with concrete beams to strengthen and level the top of the wall. I set aside my work on the windows to help Armando get the rebar and forms for the beam in place on the back wall. You can see the wooden form work on the back wall in this next photo, and you can see that he has a few more rows to go on the front wall. Jabo is dog tired from all this activity:

Because of all the young man physical labor needed to pour the beam, I asked Armando to bring another guy for a while. He brought his cousin Sammy, who being low man on the totem pole, got to mix and haul the concrete. Here they are pouring the beam at the top of the back wall:

Jabo wants to help, too. He can easily make the four foot jump to the staging:

After the beam was poured, Armando went back to finishing the blocks on the front wall. Then we stripped the forms from the back beam and formed the beam at the top of the front wall.

For the big door, I’ll bolt a sliding door track to the inside of the concrete beam. I’ll build the door out of 2″x2″ square metal tubing and some of the scrap metal cut from the containers. For security, I have purposely not put many windows in the shop, so the big door will provide a lot of light and air while I work inside.

And by the way, out from the front of the shop will be a large carport roof, so if I am working on a large project, I can easily work undercover in the driveway.

And, that big blank wall to the right of the big shop door looks like an opportunity waiting for some sort of custom art piece. Wait… In the meantime, Cynthia says we can hang a piece of her artwork. For a Breast Cancer Awareness Week art exhibit with friends at a local gallery, Cynthia made a bra to represent what she says the contraptions actually feel like. Looks to me like Madonna would be green with envy:

Made from aluminum window screening, plumbers hanger strapping, pop rivets, washers, and other fittings, this is Cynthia's interpretation of what it is like to wear a bra.

Back to our program, here’s the front beam being poured:

A steady light rain yesterday kept us wet enough and cold enough and muddy enough that after the beam was poured at noon I sent the guys home with a full day’s pay. I went home and took a long hot shower. They don’t have the luxury of hot water in their houses so with perpetually wet clothing, unless they dry the clothes over a wood fire which makes them very smoky smelling, it is likely that they will have “refreados” (head colds) when they return on Monday morning.

That’s all for now. I’ll write another short post about progress on the windows. In the mean time, stay warm and dry.

Delicious Tempeh On Our First Attempt

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In this post, we make Indonesian tempeh, a fermented soybean cake. Sorry, nothing to do with construction of our shipping container house, except to say that it has been raining, raining, raining. Here is a short video of one of our pretty-much-daily sprinkles:

Yes, dear Colorado friends, as much in an hour as you get in a year. Neither is better, just sayin’. Half an hour will fill a leaky wheelbarrow.

In the mean time, Cynthia and I have been craving tempeh. If you don’t know, tempeh is a common Indonesian food made from soybeans and a starter culture that ferments the beans. The fermentation forms the beans into a cake that is somewhat nutty or mushroomy in aroma and taste. Being fermented, it has vitamin B-12, generally lacking in the vegetarian food group so it is an important food for me, a vegetarian.

If you haven’t eaten tempeh, before you go all “yuck” on me because of the repulsive idea that it is fermented, remember cheese, yogurt, real pickles and sauerkraut (not that chemical-laden stuff in jars and cans at the supermarket), beer, wine, champagne, and yeasted bread. You get the idea. It’s just different, and it is worth a try.

You can slice and fry tempeh, maybe put some tamari (like soy sauce) on it and it is good like bacon. You can crumble it, steam or fry it and season it for meat substitute in tacos. When I say “meat substitute,” I don’t necessarily mean that it tastes like meat; I mean that it is a good source of protein. Tempeh makes a mean Ruben sandwich or wrap.  Generally, it can replace any meat.

We have been able to buy it at Organica, the only natural food store in Panama, and it may be available at some of the Asian groceries but we haven’t checked that out. Being a frozen imported product, it is quite expensive and more often than not, out of stock. So we decided to make it ourselves.

First, you need to know how to make the stuff. Having never made tempeh, I Googled and watched several YouTube videos including this one and took notes.

Second, you need soybeans. We haven’t been able to find them here in Panama so we Amazon.com-ed some. This was a bit on the expensive side what with the shipping. You can make tempeh from other beans and grains, so we will probably buy other beans locally the next time. The protein content is lower with other beans, but I eat a ton of beans all the time anyway and am still alive.

Third, you need the fermentation culture. We ordered online from Gem Cultures in Washington state. A small packet has enough culture for ten pounds of tempeh.

Fourth, you need an incubator. I bought a Styrofoam cooler and a 7-watt light bulb. I also bought (amazon.com) a terrarium heater control. I wired up a light socket, screwed in the light bulb, and plugged it into the terrarium heater control. The heater control has a probe that I duct taped inside the cooler. I put a piece of aluminum foil over the bulb to spread the heat. I took some bamboo skewers and made a rack above the light bulb for the tempeh. Here’s what the incubator looks like:

We did the process and it was very easy.

  1. Soak a pound of soybeans 24 hours.
  2. Under running water, squeeze the beans in your hands to split them in half and remove the hulls. The hulls float to the top and are easy to skim off.
  3. Boil the beans in a pot for 30-60 minutes until al dente.
  4. Plug in the incubator, set it for 85 degrees, and let it come up to temperature.
  5. Rinse, drain, cool, and dry the beans.
  6. Using clean equipment, sprinkle a teaspoon of the starter over the beans and mix in completely.
  7. Spoon the beans into zipper sandwich bags to make a layer about a half inch thick. Our batch made three bags. Seal the bags, then poke holes in the bags every half inch or so so the starter can breathe.
  8. Put the bags-o-beans on the rack in the incubator.
  9. Let the starter work for 24 hours or so then take a look. At 24 hours, not much was viable in our bags, just a bunch of moisture on the inside of the bags. We wondered if the starter was okay, as we had had it for nearly two years. But I put the lid back on and checked again later. At 30 hours the beans were solidified into cakes, and everything inside the bags was appropriately covered with the white mold. There was a tiny tinge of black mold, which is perfectly fine, but white is preferred, so I removed the bags and declared the tempeh done. Here’s what it looks like:

Jabo approved

So last night we had our first tempeh in perhaps a year. We cooked a bag of pasta; it was very substantial, like edges cut off lasagna noodles. I had brought some basil home from the market earlier in the day and Cynthia made fresh basil pesto that held well to the pasta. I steamed and sauteed some red bell peppers and strips of tempeh in olive oil. We piled our plates high.

I’ve been eating tempeh since 1980 and can say that this was the best tempeh I have ever eaten. It was nice and fresh, absolutely no off-odor from being frozen or stored too long. Absolutely delicious, moist and nutty, can’t wait to eat it again.

That’s all for now. Go make some tempeh. Bean there done that.

 

My Shop ~ Part 3 ~ Walls Going Up

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We are now about three weeks into building my shop and the walls are going up.

We have had a lot of interruptions; both Armando and I have had head colds, I took some time to wash the mold off the wooden ceilings in our rental house, I’ve had to make trips to the city to take care of other business, and there has been rain, rain, rain. But still, we are making progress and when I look at today’s batch of photos I am satisfied with all we have accomplished.

Early in the day when it is not raining, Armando works out in the open. But by 10:30 or 11:00 he moves under the tarps. The tarps are a minute to minute affair as the wind whips them, strings break, and the tarps get torn by the rebars sticking up from the columns.

After the house is finished, Armando will go back to working for us one day a week doing yard work. He’ll need a bathroom outside of the house, and it will be more convenient if a bathroom is near my shop so I don’t have to tromp dirt through the house. We decided to take a corner of my shop for a small area for a toilet and shower. In the next picture, Armando lays block by the bathroom door. By the way, wherever a block meets a column, Armando drives a concrete nail part way into the column, then makes a hole in the end of the block, lays the block, then fills the void in the block with mortar, thereby locking the block to the column.

As I mentioned in a previous post, block work here in Panama is not perfect. It’s okay, I keep telling myself. In the next picture you can see that a lot of the blocks simply fall apart.

Here is the same shot but later in the day. I decided to put a small closet in the corner. The main reason for this is to strengthen the door jamb for the main shop door. The door will be eight feet wide. I’ll put a security door on the closet and I can keep small tools such as drills and grinders in the closet.

Here’s an overview of the shop to date:

In other news, I am making progress on fabricating the window frames that will get welded into the container walls. I’ll have a post on that soon, but for now know that I am welding and grinding away on the project. I am welding square 2″x2″x1/16″ metal tubing. If I had an unlimited budget I would have liked to use 1/8″ tubing because it would have been a breeze to weld. The 1/16th inch thick tubing is much more of a challenge as it is oh so very easy to burn right through the tubing while trying to weld. Some of my corners have been great successes, such as this next photo looking straight down on a corner.

Other times I haven’t been so lucky and the welds are, um, ahh, UGLY. In this next picture I am working with two pieces of metal that I cut slightly too short. The magnification of errors resulted in a 3/8″ gap that I had to bridge by using a piece of 3/8″ rebar. All of this mess will of course be ground smooth and will disappear after a few coats of paint are applied. But still, ugly is as ugly does and I present it here without shame:

That’s all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Birthday Jabo

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I’ll have a post about the house very soon, but first it’s Jabo’s fourth birthday.

Although we probably won’t get party hats and have a pizza party for the mutt, I thought I would at least go through some old photos and post them here. He’s a good dog despite of his overly energetic feeling of responsibility as a watch dog.

He and his litter mates were rescued by local expats. His mom is not a street dog, but she doesn’t get a great deal of care from her people. After giving birth, she was found walking the street with her uterus prolapsed outside her body.

Along with Jabo, we also adopted one of his sisters, Gracie. Gracie turned out to be nothing but mean, mean, mean. She even looked mean. We found a new home for her on a farm in the mountains. Here they are at about three weeks old just after we brought them home:

Jabo’s mother pretty much lives in front of the Hong Kong grocery store in town, frequently sleeping in a ball by the door. When I see her I always stop and pet her for a few minutes. Jabo’s dad has a wider circuit but I see him around now and then. Here they are:

Cynthia has had an intense disliked of dogs, indeed with reason, as she has been bitten three times in her life. But we needed a watchdog. He proved his worth to her at just three months old when he sounded out a “woof,” waking me from a deep sleep. Moments later, an intruder opened the window at the head of our bed and tried to enter the house. I’m thankful to have had the warning.

Cyn took to him with gusto, and while I worked on a project away from home, she spent hours and hours a day with him, teaching him commands such as sit, lie down, flat dog, and dance. He has so much energy that he just can’t get the hang of stay. One of his favorite games as a youngster was Drag a Dog.

The mutt melted Cynthia’s fear of dogs.

I knocked together a dog house for him:

I taught him the easy command. He loves popcorn:

Siesta:

One day Jabo found out the hard way that he couldn’t quite clear a five-foot barbed wire fence. Two surgeries and thirty stitches on the inside of his right rear thigh gave him pause the next time he thought about the fence:

I'm sorry Dad, I'll never do that again...

Sometimes I have a fruit smoothie for lunch. Jabo loves to lick the glass clean. I tell Cynthia that it doesn’t need to be washed, but she is doubtful at best.

I liked this last photo so much that I painted it in watercolor:

This photo is on one of my little red wagon posts, but I like it enough to repeat it here:

I took this one today of Jabo sleeping on the sand pile. It’s a dog’s life for sure.

That’s all for now. Happy birthday Jabo!