Friday 12/13- We are at the end of turtle nesting season, and things have been very, very slow the last couple of weeks. Since no new nests are being found, the person in charge of the turtle sanctuary is ending the official turtle walks and today was Ramie’s team's last walk. They always hope they will find one last nest, but that was not the case for them today. The team ended the season with the following numbers.
Since it has not rained in a few days and the driveway has completely dried out, it was time to acid wash it and to prepare it for the sealer. The acid is very strong and will burn skin, so while Ramie was working on the driveway, we had to keep Skye locked inside until it was all rinsed down and neutralized. If Skye were to step on this while it was undiluted, it would surely cause severe burns on her paws and that would be awful. Ramie was even wearing protective clothing and rubber boots while he did the work. After a couple hours of spraying the acid on the concrete and scrubbing it with the broom, he was done with the hard part, and all that was left was to rinse it down really well and let it completely dry out again before applying the sealer. The instructions for the sealer says that it should be done when it’s cool and not in direct sun, otherwise it doesn't have enough time to adhere and penetrate the concrete. It also can’t get rained on for at least a couple of hours after it's put on. All of these requirements makes it super tricky to do down here, especially this time of year when you just never really know what the weather’s going to do. We’re really hoping for good weather these next couple of days to make this all work out!
At about 8pm tonight we got a delivery of 6 more solar panels. Yes, we just put 6 up on the roof and got started with our whole solar energy production back in mid October, but we had an abnormally cloudy and rainy November, more like our typical October, and while the ability to produce power was “ok” with what we had when it was sunny, during the cloudy rainy weather the panels just didn't have enough oomph to power us through the day and recharge the battery usage that we use overnight. We decided to make the most of the sunny hours that are available during the rainy times of years, and order 6 more panels, giving us a total of 12. This will also max out the input for our inverter. Since the delivery guy couldn’t drive his truck on the driveway (since we are prepping to seal it), Ramie and I both went out to help unload the panels and bring them up to the house. It didn't take too long, and he was back on his way for at least 1 more delivery tonight. Now, I guess Ramie has more work to do sometime soon.
Saturday 12/14- Ramie’s back has not been right since he threw it out moving the appliances for Karen a few weeks ago, and my shoulder has been out of whack for far too long, so after about a month of waiting, today we finally got to go see Benny the Chiropractor. Even though we both knew we really needed it, lately either we had other plans or Benny was out of town. We made a point to go see Benny for our adjustments this morning and boy was that ever needed! I sure hope we feel better now!
After seeing Benny, we went home and I worked on the blog for a while before I decided to start some Christmas baking. I don’t have the patience to do a lot of baking, and it has gotten worse since we moved to Costa Rica, so I don’t do all of the fancy cookies that some people do or the huge spread of cookies like my mom does, but I did some basic peanut butter cookies, separate batches of regular and “safe for Dana” banana bread, and my special black bean brownies. Some of this would be brought to our annual Christmas celebration, but some of it would be to enjoy here at home.
Just before dinner this evening the driveway was in the shade, had been drying all day, and it didn't appear like it was going to rain over night, so Ramie decided to postpone dinner and apply the sealer. His original plan was to use the weed sprayer to spray on the sealer but he quickly found out that the sprayer just didn't work like he expected it to and he would have to roll it on like you paint your walls. Since he had already started, he couldn't stop now, switched gears, and continued. He bought 2 gallons of sealer, and he was unsure of how far that would go but hoped that would do it all. The first gallon only covered about a third of the way up the driveway, but the lower section is a more porous and was sucking up more of the sealer. As he moved up the driveway it got a little bit smoother as it flattens out, so hopefully the 2nd gallon would go further than the first. It was nearing dark now and he was able to finish all but a section that was about 8 feet x 6 feet. His plan for that would be to buy one more gallon to finish that section and use whatever was left of that gallon and apply it to the carport, since that had never been sealed either. In the end, I’d say it didn’t turn out too badly.
Thursday 12/19- Just about everyone we know down here knows about “Ramie’s Repairs”, whether or not they actually know that’s what Tracy jokingly named it, and today our friends Ray & Wesley had some work for him to do. As we did, they built their home here and have been living in it for about a year now. As is typical, there are always some things that you discover later that you don’t like or could be better, and one thing that we know that the builders down here do not do is lower the ceiling fans to the proper height, they just install them with the few inch down-rod that comes in the box with the fan. We discovered through our own experience that lowering ceiling fans does actually make a tremendous difference! Ray and Wesley asked Ramie to not only lower their fans, but also to replace the fans that were originally installed in their house to ones that provide more airflow.
Ramie started by replacing the fan outside in their porch which did not take long. After installing the new one Ray and Wesley confirmed that it did in fact move more air than the prior fan and were glad for that, however they did still want it dropped lower than the extension allowed. Of course, that was absolutely possible, they would just have to buy a longer extension for Ramie to install.
Ramie moved on to the 2nd fan to add a longer extension and discovered that this fan was different from others; the extension screwed into the fan instead of using a pin to hold it in place. What he had planned to install wouldn’t work, but he could check the hardware stores in town to see if they had one that would work. He had a bad feeling, knowing what these stores typically have in stock, that nothing would be available, but it never hurts to check. After going to all 3 hardware stores in town he came back empty handed, the only option remaining would be to order them from the US and have them shipped down. They gave Ramie the approval to go ahead and order what was needed and when they were delivered he would go back to finish the work.
After that, this afternoon Ramie had another job to help with. Randall recently bought a new larger 4x4 work/delivery truck that would be able to haul loads of pallets, or even a 20’ shipping container. This was a big upgrade from the smaller truck that he had before for shipping & deliveries. The truck that he purchased was only a chassis, though, and didn’t come with a bed on it. Randall found a used bed in San Jose and had it shipped down to San Isidro, but he would be in charge of putting them together. Since putting a truck chassis and bed together isn’t as easy as putting Legos together, Randall asked Ramie if he could help do the work. Around 1pm, Randall and Ramie left Uvita to head over to San Isidro where the new truck was at the dealership and the bed was stored somewhere else at a friend’s workshop, where they would also do the work. Randall said he had everything that he “thinks” he needs, but you know how projects go, there are always things that you aren’t prepared for and pop up out of nowhere.
When they arrived at the yard where the flat bed was stored, the truck hadn’t been delivered by the dealership yet, so they had to wait, but they were smart enough not to waste this time just sitting around. While they waited, they were able to install the mud flaps and started making measurements of where the large clamps would be installed to hold the bed to the truck and began cutting and grinding out metal in those locations to make all of the connections work. Finally, when the truck arrived, it was time to figure out how to get this extremely large truck bed actually onto the frame of the truck. Of course the bed was lower than the truck frame so they had to find a way to lift it higher to get the truck underneath it. This is a very large flatbed, and was, of course, way too heavy for two guys to lift, so they had to get creative. It was already sitting on 55 gallon barrels, but they had to get it about 8-12” higher. With some creative leverage, some cement blocks and pieces of wood that they found lying around, and the muscle of the two guys, they were able to get the front of the bed lifted high enough that they could start backing the truck under it. As they slowly moved the truck back, they would have to reposition the barrels and repeat the process. Eventually they got about half of the bed on the frame of the truck. It was at that point that they wanted to try to use a metal pipe as a roller and see if they could push it the rest of the way back. The creative ingenuity worked, and they were able to get the truck bed into position on the frame of the new truck. Now, with it finally in position, it was time to clamp it together, right?
Actually, no, there was one more step that they had to take before they could secure everything together. Randall wanted to place some wood between the bed and the frame as a sort of insulator against vibration and wear, so before attaching everything they once again had to lift the bed to get a piece of wood between there. They were able to lift one side at a time using more creative ingenuity, the wood, the cement, their knowledge of leverage and muscle again and were able to slide the wood in where it needed to go.
Now that it was all ready to be clamped into place and attached, they realized that the diagram that the dealership gave them was not accurate and all of that cutting and grinding that they did before the truck got here was for nothing. They would have to cut out new areas in the bed for the clamps to fit, and in order to do this they would have to re-lift the bed off of the truck frame, one side at a time. After cutting out the new locations, it was finally time to install those clamps, but of course, in the process, they ran into more issues! The clamps that Randall had, were custom made, when he ordered them he gave the metal fabricator the frame dimensions so he could bend the metal to fit the proper width, but because of the inside curves of the bent part of the clamp, they wouldn’t slide all the way up and the bolts couldn’t slide straight through the spaces that they had to go. Now, it was time to get out the BFH (big freaking hammer), and when that was not enough, they got out a floor jack and used the weight of the truck against itself to bend things and make it all fit. Eventually they got it all bolted down, but that still wasn’t the end of the project ! The truck had to be made road legal, and since they just added a long bed on the back of the original truck frame, they had to install tail lights too. By the time they got that done it was around 6:30pm, were they done with the project now?
Well… no. Something was forgotten about until just now. When they thought they were almost done they realized that they needed to put reflectors on the sides of the tuck. This was something that Randall didn’t think of before and didn't have with him, and by this time of the evening, most of the stores that would carry reflective tape were closing or closed. Randall knew of one that was still open and had what he needed, but of course it was rush hour and the store was on the other side of town, so getting there before they close could be a challenge. Fortunately they made it to the store with about 10 minutes to spare before they closed, and quickly headed back to the truck to install that last little detail and wait for the dealer to come pick up the truck. Of course, Randall didn’t get to bring the truck home tonight, as the dealer still had to bring it to the required inspection to make sure everything was legal and “up to standard” before Randall could take delivery. Finally, around 7:30pm, they were done with the truck and on the road home. It had been a long, tough afternoon and both of them had worked up an appetite, so they stopped for dinner before they got too far out of town. I don’t know what time Ramie finally got home, but I can tell you, I go to bed early and was already in bed when he did get home.
Tuesday 12/17- It has been quite a while since we made the drive to Panama to stock up on things that we prefer to buy at the border, as we've explained before, some things are less expensive there, especially liquor. Things have been fairly quiet for me at work lately, so we made a last-minute decision, I arranged to take the day off and, and we made the 2 hour drive South to load up on some goodies. The drive South to the border is a much straighter, flatter drive than the very curvy, steep mountain roads that we drive to get to San Isidro, so on this trip, I am able to be productive without getting motion sick like I would on the drive over the mountain. Since I was on a time crunch to try to get my crocheted Christmas stockings finished before Christmas, I brought my yarn and used my time in the car to work on one of those.
We got an early start so we could make it to the stores not too long after they opened, get in, get our stuff, get out, and get home. When we made it to our first stop, the liquor store...
...there were only a few other people shopping and we were able to make our selections fairly quickly and get on our way. We already knew what was on our “list”, so it truly shouldn’t take us long at all. In the half hour that we were in the store everyone must have started their shopping day because suddenly the store was packed full of people stocking up on liquor, wine, and beer. We quickly finished up and got out of there, we are not a fan of crowds in general, and like them even less when they reduce our shopping efficiency. Our next stop would be City Mall for the rest of the “stuff” on our list, and depending on how long and how successful that stop was, we might stop at one other “mall” that we had never been to before just to see what they had. As we neared the other side of town where City Mall is located, we noticed that there were tons of people everywhere. The places that we normally park were all full and the streets were barely wide enough to drive a car through. It was at this point that we realized that right before Christmas was probably NOT the time to try to get some quick shopping done. As we slowly crept along the main street where all of the shopping was, and we got farther and farther away from the store that we wanted to go to, we considered skipping this altogether and just going home with our liquor, and calling it a day. I convinced Ramie that since we made the drive all the way down here we should just suck it up and make the best of it.
When we finally found a place to park we were quite a long way from where we were planning to shop, but were actually right in front of the other “mall” that we were considering checking out.
I convinced Ramie to take a quick stroll around the store just to see what they had, and thought that maybe we wouldn’t have to go all the way down to the other end for the mall that we wanted to go to if we could find some of the things on our list here. We did a quick lap around the very chaotic store, and discovered that they did not have any of our “must get” items, and none of the “maybe” items that we were considering were worth it to buy here since the check out lines appeared to be a mile long and moving slowly. With that out of the way, we made the trek down to City Mall, and made a very conscious decision to only buy the “must get” items, because we would have to carry them all by hand all the way down to the car. We wouldn’t be stocking up on things like motor oil for future oil changes or any big items today! City Mall was just as chaotic as the store we had just come from, but at least here we knew what we wanted, we knew where it was, and we could make this an efficient trip. We spent about an hour in the store, which is about half of what we usually do, got a much smaller amount of “stuff” than we normally do, and got out of there as quickly as we could. We each loaded up our arms and got all of the stuff down to the truck in one trip, and then, as quickly as we could, got out of town.
Note to self: don’t go shopping at the border in December, make sure to stock up before then!!
 |
| I finished the other one, so now we'd at least have a set of 2 before Christmas! |
Friday 12/20- This morning while I worked, Ramie worked on getting the roof ready for the solar panels that we would be adding to the front, lower section of our roof. Placing the panels on this side would be easier than the ones on the back of the house, because the front of our house faces the correct direction, and is even at the proper angle, so instead of making large mounting structures like he did on the larger back side roof of our house, he only had to mount some small pieces of extra metal that the rails would attach to. Since he was up there already, he also used this opportunity to get all of the wiring in place so it was ready to hook up and connect it to the inverter after we got the panels on the roof. This project may have been one of the quickest parts of the solar installation and only took him a couple of hours to do.
We haven't been out with Geoff & Tracy for quite a while, and I didn’t feel like cooking, so we decided to see if they wanted to do a last minute dinner out this evening. Our old favorite bar & wings place, Jolly Roger, closed their Uvita location that was pretty close to us a few months ago but recently re-opened a new location in Dominical and we wanted to check it out. We picked them up and made the 20-minute drive to Dominical, which even though it isn’t far, we don’t go to very often.
 |
| I thought it was a little bit fitting to place this here, we just built this Lego pirate ship about a week ago |
While Ramie was on the roof doing all of those final steps I started to do a little bit more preparation for our 4th Annual Christmas on the beach. Along with the goodies that I baked last weekend, I thew together some homemade salsa and got the crackers & cheese, fresh from our trip to Panama, ready and packaged up to bring with us in a few days.
Deiner reached out to us at some point during the day and wanted to meet up with us for lunch after he was done with the Mercado. He told us that he also invited Geoff and Tracy and we’d make a normal crazy date of it. Unfortunately Geoff and Tracy weren’t able to make it so the 3 of us had “linner” (lunch + dinner) together and then he had to run because he got a message that a family member was getting ready to slaughter a pig and they would be throwing a big party of fresh pork this evening. I don’t blame him, I’d want to head home for that too!
 |
| Deiner remembers the sign language that Jamie taught him for Helicopter and wanted to show her. |
Comments
Post a Comment