Summer 2015
I’m determined to be able to walk around this place. So I’m relentless in digging these terraced pathways, knocking the uphill dirt down with a little flat spade thing which has become just my favourite tool. As I find sticks and shit laying around, I put that on the downhill side for erosion control.
I’m working my way slowly up the hill, zigzagging all over the property in a random way.
My nursery is evolving too, graduating from being on the ground, to a fancy cement block/scrap wood table.
Now I could be in my own happy little world. People are really good around here with sharing plants, so I haven’t had to buy anything really, so far.
When I’m not in my happy place, there’s always fix-up jobs to do on the catamaran.
We did take time out for Ed to get some surgery to fix his herniated belly button, which had been bothering him for some time.
Here’s the link “ED AND HIS BELLY BUITTON”
Following that surgery, he was confined to bedrest for a week or more. We had a visiting nurse come by every day to check the incision and change the dressing. It was quite awhile before Ed got to be his normal dancing self.
We found a great builder in Pollytilly Bight – Richard Mann – and seeing as how we badly needed a rest from supervising every employee, every detail, and shopping for and getting materials, we decided to let out the ‘wood’ contract and pay somebody else to have all the headaches.
They started by setting up the sub floor structure, running around precariously along the beams, no safety equipment at all.
For this part, the temporary roofing zincs (metal roof) had to be removed, but somehow they put them back in order to maintain the bodega storage area nice and dry.
Somehow someone decided we needed to do more digging…..to make a walking space behind the house. It ended up being a good decision, a cement patio behind the house keeps it insulated from the dirt and termites.
The walls are built flat, and then the whole gang gets together and raises the entire wall vertically. This is how they did all the walls.
It was really going fast. Making great progress and it’s still only June. A few months to go before the rainy season comes again.
While one gang was busy up top, another gang was busy on the ground, preparing holes to put support posts in.
We know that you can’t just stick some wood posts into some cement at ground level and not expect them to go rotten an a couple of years.
So, we fiberglassed the bottom 6 feet or so of the posts, then sunk them in the cement.
No job site is complete without some enterprising person showing up with food. In this case it was our cook Chena, bringing huge delicious sweet sticky cinnamon buns.
While all this building was going on, we were still doing a thriving catamaran day charter business. And the usual boat maintenance chores.
Things started happening so quick and we were so busy that somehow a couple of months passed with few progress photos. But a roof was erected! Here is a vent at the top to let out all the hot air.
The posts that were put in the cement bases were used to construct a deck around almost the whole house.
These things are called hurricane clips. They attach the roof strongly to the walls. In the event of a hurricane, the tendency is for the roof to blow up in the air, so you need to hold it down. Not like Canada where you’re worried about snow load.
We got a set of steps!
And a big deck ended up being 4’ wider than expected due to the fact that the plans called for a 12’ deck, but the pieces of wood were 16’ so why cut them shorter? Just make the deck wider.
A million uprights were cut for the railings.
The layer of tarpaper is on the roof now, and the strapping nailed on for to attach the roofing zincs.
We decided we needed at least 2 more water collection tanks, so one day when we were in town after a charter, we loaded on a couple of tanks on to the Catamaran and brought them home.
Roofing zincs are on, we are safe and dry.