Catching up....again.

Yes...We're Finally in the House!

 We've been living in the main house for nearly two months now.  It's great to be out of the little casita!  Since everything's nearly finished inside, we've had time to work on some outdoor projects.  

One of the first outdoor projects is a perimeter fence. We're slowly building the fence around the side and back of the property, hoping to slow down drifting sand during wind storms.

The fence posts are basic 4x4 lumber treated with insect repellant.  The panels are made of what are called Tallo's.  Each Tallo is the center stem of a date palm leaf.  When stripped of their leaves and dried, they're rigid, similar to bamboo or cariso, but more durable.  Each one is nailed with an air gun to horizontal 2x2's running between each post.  If it's cloudy in the morning, I go out and nail for a couple hours, until it gets too hot. It's a slow process, I usually complete one or two sections before the heat gets unbearable.  

Bundles of Tallos below:

                          

Materials storage and work area.  There's no treated lumber available in this region, so we treat each post with a insecticide for termites, paint a tar like substance on the part that will be in the ground to waterproof it, then stain.
                                         

                            

The guy that brought the Tallos, just happen to have some pretty cool lava rocks in the back of his truck... hoping we'd be interested in buying them.  Well, we were.  I think this rock weighed over 300 lbs.  It took a good deal of wrestling to move to where we wanted it.  The hand truck was worthless.  The rock squashed it like a bug.

                          

Done!

                         

We're slowly attempting to control the blowing sand.  We brought in loads of black sand from the local arroyos.  It's heavy and doesn't blow easily.  Walking paths are covered with fine gravel.  Someday we'd like to make walkways, but that's a way's off.   After we get all the plants in, the planters will be filled with red gravel like the island above.

                               

Expanding landscaping on the ocean side of the house:

Rainbow after a little thunderstorm:

Below is the entrance to the courtyard.  We're having gates made in Loreto.  We're supposed to pick them up this week, but yesterday and last night we had a lot of rain from Tropical Storm Ivo.  I doubt the roads will be passable for some time.

The Casita landscaping is much more mature:

View from Casita patio:

Main house patio:

Main house BBQ and outdoor dining area:

  

We have way too many trailers. There's a travel trailer, two cargo trailers, and a camper spread about the property.  

Below is the beginnings of a storage area for the trailers:

Are you in the new house yet?

Quite often, we get asked if we're living in the new house yet.  When I say no, the response is why... what have you been doing all this time?

Well......

There's the solar water heating system that took about forever to install:

But, so far, on a sunny day with temps in the mid 60's, we're getting 115 - 120 degree water!

Then we had to install the propane tank, another lengthy project.

                                    

...and the propane detector.  This connects to a valve at the tank.  If it senses a propane leak, or any other dangerous gases like carbon monoxide, it shuts off the gas flow.

We also had to install (and still need to complete) the low voltage converter, and small solar powered battery system.  

The low voltage converter powers 12 volt outdoor lighting.  The solar battery charger will power bed fans and maybe some outdoor automatic lighting.  It will be seperate from the main solar.   

Then there's the water filter system.  Every faucet will have drinkable water!

Oh...and the grey water drip system.  This collects shower and washing machine water, then converts it into water suitable for a drip system.  

...along with staining and painting of all the doors:

 It's definitely true that detail work takes longer than construction!

I can't believe 4 months have passed since the last post.  During that time we've been working 8 hours/ day, 7 days a week on finish work.  We're finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Here's a photo of the completed kitchen:

One thing we didn't realize with most of the appliances, is that in the instructions, there's a list of "additional" parts needed to install them.  As it turns out, none of the "additional" parts were available anywhere we looked in Mexico.  Most of the installations had to wait until we went North to the States in November to get more supplies.

Master bath and shower are done!  Still need to tile sink countertops though:

Sunrise from the kitchen window:

It's starting to look like a real house!

Upstairs deck:

Sunrise from upstairs deck:

Catching Up

HURRICANE PAUL:

The hurricane experience isn't just limited to the time of the bad weather.  It's a week long event.  During hurricane season, we check the NWS Hurricane Website daily.  Not just because we're worried about hurricane damage, if a hurricane tracks properly, it can provide good surf also.  

Hurricane predictions can be as far as a week ahead of the time of the storm.  The predictions that far ahead are inaccurate and change daily.  They usually produces a week of worry, planning, and what-if scenarios.  It can be a very long week if the initial forecasts predict it will make landfall in our area.

On October 16, when we went to bed, Paul was forecast to pass over us the following night as a tropical storm.  Winds were forcast to be strong, but not dangerous, somewhere in the range of 50 to 65 mph.  We spent the day preparing.  From prior experience, we've learned that it takes 40 mph winds to launch resin chairs.  We didn't care to find out how much wind it takes to send picinic tables or lounge chairs flying.  So we stowed everything indoors.  

When we woke the following morning, the forecast had changed radically.  Now we were expecting sustained winds of 100mph +.  That's a whole different ballgame.  Here's the morning's forecast:

Now there was much more preparing to do.

We have a travel trailer which we use when we spend time in the U.S., a cargo trailer and camper.  Our future plans include a shaded and secure area where we can store and tie these down in case of a hurricane.  We also have plans to install hurricane shutters on the new house.  We haven't had the time yet, or resources to do either.  With this much larger storm approaching we had to figure out how to secure everything. 

We moved the travel trailer to an area where we hoped the house and garage would cut down the wind, dug holes and rolled the wheels into the holes so it wouldn't move.  We also staked down the camper and cargo trailer.  That would have to do.  We also resigned to the fact that we might loose some windows in the new house.  We would ride out the storm in the guest house (which has hurricane shutters), where we would be safe and hope for the best.  

Fortunately the above forecast was wrong.  The storm did hit us, but with winds more in the 40 to 50 mph range.  The highest gusts were around 60.  

As the storm approached, winds and waves gradually increased:

The worst of the storm was around 2:00 in the morning.  I had planned to go out and check the main house, but after feeling the pressure on the front door from the wind, I decided I may not be able to shut the door if I opened it.  It would have to wait until the wind died down some. 

After the storm passed, when the winds switched direction and began to blow out of the South.  The  winds began pushing high seas into the bay.  The storm surge, combined with a 7 foot high tide, forced the wave spray up and over the cliffs in front of our house.  The second picture below is how the beach looks on a normal tide.

Below, what is normally a nice sandy beach, is under about 8 feet of water:

This palapa had some maintenance issues before the storm, but now it appears to be a tear down:

This is a picture a friend sent us.  He was trying to get into town, but water across the road was so deep in some areas, people were being shuttled across by boat: 

The road was cut in several places, the only way in our out of out town was by sea, and a 4 hour boat ride to the nearest port:

This is the beach where the fishing boats launch.  The super high tides washed away some boats and lobster traps:

Now that the hot weather has dissipated and clean up from the storm is complete, it's time to start working on the house again.  We still have a lot to do, and we're doing it ourselves.  Here's the upstairs pato, which other than lighting, is finished:

Master bedroom:

Downstairs patio:

We've finally finished painting the exterior!

The outdoor dining area, just needs lighting and food:

View looking out from the courtyard:

Kitchen countertops and cabinets are completed.  Now we just need to paint and install the appliances and fixtures:

ACV trucking.  These guys are awesome.  They delivered all our floor tile from the U.S., appliances,  windows, and roof tile.  Nothing damaged.  The owner kept us updated on the trucks progress during each delivery by email since we don't have phone service.  First class operation.