Tag Archives: shipping container house panama

On Vacation

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I’m taking a few weeks off from construction of the container house while a friend visits us from the States. I’ll be back writing about the house after the first of March. Wow. March is so soon? I’ve got to get busy as the dry season is passing quickly!

I took our house guest for a drive in the country to Cedelinda’s (I’m tutoring her in English) house. Cedelinda lives in the small pueblo of Chichi Bali, a five-kilometer drive on a not-well-maintained dirt road. There is no bus or taxi service, and there is currently only one pickup truck that drives the road daily to and from the pueblo. There is a trip in the morning and a trip in the early evening. People can get a ride for a dollar. If you miss the ride or don’t have the dollar, your other option is to walk.

The purpose of our visit to the pueblo was because Cedelinda had invited Cynthia and me to see her in church as she became a catechist (started catechism education in the Catholic church). The church was packed with standing room only, but the priest had car trouble and couldn’t make it to the pueblo. So after the non-service, Cedelinda invited us to her house for refreshments.

I guess there are wonderful health benefits from having to walk. But the thought of a pregnant woman, or an older person with arthritis walking to and from Chichi Bali seems like too much to me. It gives new meaning to what old folks say to kids, “When I was going to school it was uphill both ways.” Well, for school kids from Chichi Bali, it still is uphill both ways!

After the trip, I remembered that the dash cam was recording all this, so here for your viewing pleasure is The Trip To Chichi Bali. Much of the road is carved into the side of the mountains and there are precipitous drops into deep valleys. There are a couple slight pauses while I stop to pick up a few people. Watching a video of driving a dirt road may not be everyone’s cup of tea but, in two parts because of the YouTube 15-minute limit, here is the trip from our house to Cedelinda’s house:

Toward the end of part 2 of the trip we stop at the church. After we leave the church we drive to Cedelinda’s house.

So, what’s the verdict? Would you like to walk this twice a day to and from work or school? Feel free to picture the walk in your mind. Throw in rain, darkness, mountain lions crossing your path…

Here are some photos we took at the church and at Cedelinda’s house (photos by me or D.H.):

Cedelinda with her niece looking on

Fresh local flowers picked for the occasion

Cede showing off two of her pet parrots

Everyone laughed at me but I don't mind

The parrots are so well treated that they don't fly away

Cede's dad, Ignacio, and her brother, Benjamin, pick some ripe star fruit off a tree at their back door

The next day, our house guest and I went to the orchid conservatory (because of poachers and other habitat problems, many of the orchids now exist only at the conservatory). This isn’t the flowering season, but a few orchids were in bloom:

Cynthia couldn't help but play with the previous photo in my photo manipulation program of choice -- Gimp. This is the result.

I’m enjoying a little time off from the hard work of building the house. But I’ll be back at it soon. That’s all for now.

 

 

 

Lunch, A Cemetery, And To Grandmother’s House I Go

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Nothing special in this post, just the story of our day away from home.

Cynthia and I needed a few things down in Coronado so today was the day. In Coronado, we made our purchases, and being lunch time, I decided to surprise Cynthia with a visit to a new restaurant in San Carlos.

Coming from Panama City, just where the speed limit drops before San Carlos, right on the highway where all the stones are stacked in piles for sale, is an authentic Italian restaurant named Mamma Mia — Toscana in Bocca (Tuscany in your mouth if I remember my smattering of Italian).

The first thing we noticed was the setting. There is a large wall that separates the restaurant from most of the road noise. Inside the wall is a large bohio (open sided, thatched roof hut. It’s always cool under a bohio.).

The setting is very relaxed and peaceful. Our English/Spanish bilingual waiter brought us menus written in Italian. We did some quick math and saw that we could very easily spend more than $20, maybe more than $30 for lunch, so we did our “water and the least expensive dishes” routine. No wine, no dessert. Cynthia ordered a spaghetti dish and I ordered a cheese/tomato pizza.

I was very hungry. I went to the owner who was working at the outside kitchen and said that we would like some garlic bread while we waited. “No!” he said, our lunches would be flour, flour, flour, too much flour! He refused to make bread for us! He said, don’t worry, your food is only a few minutes away and it will be plenty!

Sure enough, our food arrived promptly. And he was right, it was plenty. Not too much, not too little.

I was in Tuscany, Italy, back in the ’70s and I have to say, all my memories of the food came back to me today. Simple food. Well blended flavors. Spaghetti al dente, just as Cynthia likes it.

We finished our meal and told the waiter that we would like the small crumb left on my plate wrapped to go. He laughed; whether at my joke or at my Spanish I cannot tell you. I left a twenty that included a tip.

On the way back up the mountain, I remembered that the formerly nearly impassable road to a cemetery had just been freshly graded, oiled and graveled. So again as a surprise, I turned at the road and drove to the Virgen Del Carmen cemetery. This is the same name as the Catholic church in Los Llanitos near our house.

Here are some photos. Notice that the colors in the plastic flowers are not very faded; they must be changed regularly. And check out the views!

This rock formation is called, "La Puerta" (The Door).

From enjoying the views of the cemetery, we drove home.

But while we were at the cemetery, I showed Cynthia  another “road” that went to Cedelinda’s aunt’s house (Cedelinda is the young woman I am tutoring in English). I was there just last week. Not much more than a steep-hilled, two-track dirt path with lots of rocks, the Honda barely made it. Let me explain why I was there.

Cedelinda’s grandmother is 97-years-old and lives with Cede’s aunt. Grandma, deaf and nearly blind, fell and badly hurt her spine, her hip, and her legs. The family had to care for her there in the house for several weeks until she was well enough to get from the house to the road so she could go to the doctor! With only a rough path, the house is a long way from the road, and the road is so bad that it would have made Grandma much worse.

Cedelinda related the story to Cynthia and me. Pretty much the only way over the road is in one of the local pickup trucks or a farm truck. All had the suspension of a spring-less buckboard and I cringed at the thought of Grandma being jostled so much. So I volunteered to drive Grandma to her appointment with the doctor.

I actually did it again the next week, too, so she could be seen by another doctor. Cedelinda suggested that the second time I take a different road that was in better condition. On the specified day, I drove to the spot that we were to meet. We went to the doctor’s and returned.

Now here is the part that touched me so deeply that it brought tears to my eyes and affected me for days after. As I said, they don’t live near the road. Grandma can’t walk. A wheelchair would be useless on the hilly, rocky, narrow terrain of the path. How to move Grandma? Simple. A young, robust grandson piggy-backed his nearly-100-year-old grandmother to the road. I couldn’t believe my eyes as they came into view, Grandma’s arms wrapped tightly around her grandson’s neck.

I was deeply touched by the profound intimacy that I routinely see in these peoples’ lives. In the States, families tend to be smaller and separated by miles and by generations, and we generally rely on professional services to take care of situations like this. But here, three and four generations live under one roof and they often do what needs to be done themselves. After he carried her, grandson straightened her dress and made her presentable. It took several of us to get her settled into the front seat of the car.

I do not pity these people. Their lives are not complex, hurried and harried as are the lives of so many up north in the States. There is a profound simplicity for them. But there is also the constant need for them to be self-reliant, inventive, and resourceful. I admire their “grit” in so many ways.

Here is a short video of the “road of choice.” After I turn the car around, you can see Cede, her aunt, and the grandson bringing Grandma to the road.

Cynthia and I had a good day today exploring. That’s all for now. 

 

My Shop ~ Part 8 ~ The Floor

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The concrete floor for my shop was the easiest and best slab I have ever poured was not without difficulties. All ultimately ended well, but as always, there is a story.

For some time now, we have had a pile of cascajo (cas-ca-ho [the letter a has a soft sound in this word] — river run sand and gravel) taking up space in the driveway. Cascajo is great for foundations and large columns. The mix as it is dug from the river has a range of sizes from sand granules to six-inch rocks. But it is not so great for floors because of the larger rocks. The rule of thumb for pouring a slab is no gravel/stone larger in size than one-third the thickness of the slab. I know we should have sifted the pile, but Armando and his crew balked. They said that sifting just isn’t necessary. If you come across a rock that is grande and causing a problem, just pull it out of the slab and throw it aside.

Additionally, most of the pile had been sitting for months and it was permeated with grass, weeds, and roots. I could foresee a problem when it came time to trowel a nice finish, but again the guys said “es normal.”

Here is a photo of the root-infested pile of cascajo:

I’ve learned to pick my fights with the guys because I can really make a fool out of myself; they usually know things that I don’t. A case in point is when two men showed up to put an internet antenna on the roof of the house we rented when we moved to Panama. They arrived with:

  • the antenna and connecting cable
  • a six-foot length of half-inch electrical conduit
  • a small coil of bailing wire
  • a nail
  • a hammer
  • a pair of pliers

I scoffed to myself. Where was the electric drill? Where were the numerous brackets, bolts, and accessories that they would surely need to mount the mast to the roof? And where was the mast? In my opinion they were missing about $129.95 in essential pieces and parts. But I watched.

They found an old tree stump in the yard to use as an anvil. Then with the hammer they pounded flat about three-inches of one end of the electrical conduit. Next with the hammer and nail, they punched a hole in the flat section, then using the bumper on their small van they bent the flat section to a right angle. Next, back to the tree stump they switched ends of the conduit and punched a hole in the conduit about two inches from the end.

Then using the pliers up on the roof they slightly unscrewed three screws that were holding the metal roofing in place, plus a fourth screw all the way. They put the removed screw through the nail hole in the bent end of the conduit and put the screw back into the hole in the roof that it came from and tightened it down. Then they wrapped some bailing wire around one of the loosened screws, ran the wire up and through the hole at the top end of the conduit, and back down and around the second screw, back up and through the conduit, and down to the third screw. They tightened the screws. At this point the conduit mast was triangulated firmly in place. Then they mounted the antenna dish on the conduit and ran the cable to the router on my desk inside the house. D.O.N.E.

So I am careful. I learn a lot from these capable and resourceful men.

But Sr. Murphy often shows up on the job. In the case of the floor slab in my shop, it seems that my image of troweled-smooth concrete is very different from their version. I like it smooth. Very smooth. I don’t want a sandy surface. They like it flattened out so you don’t trip on any of the ridges. They don’t take smooth into account because it is a long day’s work and anally troweling the floor to a mirror finish is just not going to happen.

There is more to the story, but let’s see some photos:

I held my ground on preparing for the slab. I like a nice level couple-inch layer of gravel to pour the slab on. If you pour concrete on dirt, moisture in the dirt will capillary-action wick its way up into the slab. But capillary action can’t happen through the stones because the spaces between the stones are too large. The slab will stay dry. So even though they thought I was stupid, I had a few yards of one-inch stone delivered. Sammy and I spread it level. Jabo wasn’t sure he liked it:

On Thursday, Cynthia and I put welded wire mesh on the floor to keep the slab from cracking. Here is the floor ready for concrete. My laser level is set up to level the concrete, and in the corner is a wooden bull float that I made from scrap.

The guys mixed a big pile of concrete:

And Armando and I spread it out. Because of the large rocks in the mix, it was difficult to raise the wire mesh to the center of the slab, but I got it raised about a third of the way up. Close enough. I’m using the laser level to set the grade so Armando could more easily screed the concrete. You can see he has thrown out a few trouble maker rocks:

Here Erin and Pancho take a break after using 24 sacks of cement:

In the next photo Armando trowels the floor. After wooden floating the floor, you shouldn’t steel trowel the concrete until all the water has disappeared from the surface. This way you won’t be pushing water around, washing the cement away from the granules of sand. But it was pushing 5:00 and the guys (including yours truly) were tired. So Armando pushed the envelope slightly and troweled while there was still water on the surface. I knew I wouldn’t be happy with the finished product, but it is, after all, just a shop.

We finished, cleaned up the tools, and called it a day. The next morning, Saturday, Armando had work elsewhere, so it was just me arriving on the job. I took a look at the floor. I didn’t like it and gave the job a C-minus, maybe a D. It was rough and there wasn’t enough cement “cream” on the top. It was going to be difficult to sweep it clean in the future.

What to do? It is generally a bad idea to apply a skim coat of cement paste onto a concrete floor because in time flakes will spall off the floor. But our floor was still very green, still hydraulically pushing out water. I’ve read that you have a good chance of succeeding with a skim coat if you catch the slab while it is still only a few hours old. The most common reason for needing to do this is when a surprise rainstorm pops up and washes the cream away just after steel troweling a driveway or a patio slab.

So that’s what I did. I got a steel trowel, a bucket of dry cement powder, a bucket of water, and a sponge. I spent most of the day sprinkling cement on the slab, then adding a bit of water by wringing the sponge, then troweling the paste onto and into the floor. I had to take numerous breaks to stand up and straighten the old Arthur Itis knees. At the end of the day I gave the floor a B-plus. I can’t give it an A because the mesh didn’t get lifted as high as I wanted and also because there were a few dips just a bit deeper than I would have liked. Troweling the top coat was gruelingly difficult for my old body, but I am glad that I did it.

I’m spraying the floor with water a few times a day now, and will continue for a week. This will slow the rate of cure and will prevent a lot of surface cracks. Here’s my finished floor slab just after I sprayed it:

The next time I am in the city I plan to go to Discovery and buy a few gallons of garage floor epoxy. With the epoxy, a quick sweep of the broom will clean the floor “real nice.”

I need to let the slab sit and cure without foot traffic for at least a week, so depending on the condition of my knees, I should be back working on the house windows maybe tomorrow.

That’s all for now.

 

Against Doctor’s Orders ~ Cynthia Goes Horseback Riding

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Without going into details, suffice it to say that a little more than a year ago Cynthia had a major surgery snafu that left her with more than minor neurological problems. Her neuroligist said, “No driving a car, no working with your torch and hot glass, and no horseback riding.”

The no driving a car Cynthia can understand. But the urge to work with hot glass has gotten the better of her and she has been working in her studio a bit recently. She hasn’t burned off any fingers yet so she figures she is ahead of the game.

And this last Saturday, our neighbor invited her to go horseback riding. “We won’t go far, and we’ll go slow,” he told her as they mounted the horses, he on Acero (Steel) and she on Max. Both are good-sized quarter horses and having them both just walk was going to be a challenge.

“Oh good,” I thought, “I can go take a siesta in the hammock,” which I did. About a half hour later my cell phone woke me up. It was Cynthia. Seems that they did go far and they did more than walk. At one point, Ricardo dismounted to take a photo of Cynthia. When the camera shutter made its clicking sound, Acero was startled and took off running. They tried and tried to no avail to capture El Fugitivo (The Fugitive) as Acero is now called. The closer they got, the more El Fugitivo ran. They were now on a narrow trail beyond the hill with all the cell, radio, and TV towers.

On the phone, Cynthia asked me to go get Ricardo’s yardman, Abdiel, and bring him to the towers to help capture Acero. It’s not far, but it is a tough drive most of the way. The Honda barely made it because of the myriad of protruding rocks in the road, and I wasn’t looking forward to turning around and retracing my tracks.

Here is a video of the drive from the main road to El Valle to the hill with the towers (no audio):

The view is quite stunning from the hill the towers are on. Here’s a very short panorama video of the surrounding area. The sun was so bright that I couldn’t see anything on the camera’s viewing screen and the wind was whipping me every which way, so the video isn’t very good. But it serves to show the view:

Once Abdiel and I arrived, Abdiel took off running and Ricardo mounted Max and took off at a gallop. Funny, but as soon as Acero saw Abdiel, he came right to him and followed him back to where we were waiting. I guess the horse was tired of being on the lamb. Here are some photos of Cynthia’s great adventure (most photos by Ricardo).

After all that excitement, Cynthia was tired. I offered her a ride in the car, but “I left on a horse, I’ll return on a horse,” was her reply.

She was quite sore after not riding for two years, but she is looking forward to riding again. Her neurologist means well and her advice about not riding horses may be sound advice. But Cynthia values and needs a high quality of life. Even given the risks, she’d rather ride the horse than ride the La-Z-Boy lounge chair watching reruns of CSI. “I’d rather fall off the horse and roll down the ravine than spend the rest of my life watching TV.” And you know what? I don’t blame her one tiny bit. You go, girl!

That’s all for now.

 

 

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.