Week Seven

If you read the story on the previous post and look at the pictures below, you'll understand a bit more why I was pretty busy this weekend and unable to post these pictures.

May 4, 2008

Like members of a synchronized swimming team, the bars on our house's walls await blocks.

OK, we totally scored an incredible amount of really cheap dirt this last weekend. About 20 or 25 truckloads, to be precise (one of the drivers turned out to be Angela's cousin, so we got a huge discount). In any case, we used the dirt to help level out things in front of the lot, make things more sloped and less abrupt in the back, and we filled in the sides, which were kind of like mini-cliffs. In effect, we now have a significantly larger (and nicer-looking lot) than before.

Here you can see some of the metal framework for the "crown beams." They're supposed to pour the concrete for these imminently.

The curve in the front. Angela and I love this freaking curve.

Saturday, May 10, 2008.

Here I am helping out a guy named Emancio with some shoveling. He's selling his lot, which is two doors down, if anyone's interested. I told him I'd mention it.

A backhoe that we hired to flatten the dirt. I had dumped about 25 wheelbarrow-loads to one side of the lot, and I barely made a dent in the hills of dirt. This backhoe guy was really good and really precise, and was in and out in about a half hour.

The backhoe in the back. By the way, the Spanish word for backhoe is "backhoe," at least here, and they even write it that way...but for some reason they pronounce it "Bah-hop." Sometimes I just don't get this place.

Harvey pouring columns the old-fashioned way (aka "the shitty way"): one bucket of cement handed to him at a time.

The beautiful and more photogenic aftermath of the Bah-hop. Although the Bah-hop caused quite a stir, it was nothing compared to when the owner of the bah-hop showed up in his new white Ford F-150 double cab pickup (which, incidently, is pronounced "la picka," I shit you not). All the workers who had cell phones took them out to get a picture of the truck, and gushed about it for the rest of the day.
Anyhow, that's it for this week. Thanks for checking in!