Cleaning a cistern

Every now and then you need to clean your cistern and I was totally unsure how much mud and sand was in mine. All I knew was that the intake valve was often plugged after non use of my pump and the first bit of water was always dirty. The first year the system had no filter for water from the street so I thought it might be serious but there turned out to be less than an inch of mud. My intake valve is 4-5 inches above the bottom so how it got plugged I don't know.

I drained most of the last 5 inches with a bucket and then we lowered a neighbor in and he finished the job with a sponge, rags and a little cloro. I imagine with double filters the cistern will be good for 3-4 years now.

Entrance under the palapa

Yony inside partially cleaned

I just liked this foto

Working on wooden houses for a change

My friend Ron who normally lives in San Miguel also has a small rental in Seattle and we somehow timed our trip north at almost the same time. His last renters didn't take the best care of the place so much needed to be done. Painting nearly the whole inside, redo the living room floor, repair kitchen floor tiles, scrape and paint funky windows, clean and caulk the bathroom, repaint the front porch and refasten all the back deck screws. It was really looking good when I left and he had another week to go.

My relatives decided to remove two large skylights rather than replace them and they would need to be tiled over. We took about 70 tiles off the back of the garage that would hopefully match the roof around the skylights ... and replaced them with new darker tiles. Too many delays and I wasn't able to see the final product. Maybe sis will send a foto or two

Ron's living room

Bedroom painted

The families house

Rainy day in August

Just realized I hadn't posted on these things now completed. The palapa is dry, no longer green and only leaks a little.  The awning (marquesina) and flower beds worked out perfectly.   No rain against the house and some greenery.  The car fits in the garage and it also works as a dry work or party space and laundry area.  Grass is still struggling to recover from construction traffic but I've fertilized it.

Palapa and marquesina

Garage and bodega

Kitchen cabinets

Gabinetes or alacenas in Spanish. A place to finally get everything off the counter tops. Workers were gone last week after all the outside stuff so I had time to finish these unfinished cabinets from Home Depot. What a relief!

I had 4 open cabinets made that would fit on either side of these but they don't have oak around here so they would have to be painted the same color as the walls. I decided it would be too 'busy' and I really don't need that much storage space. There's still all that room under the counters that will eventually get shelves.   My custom cabnets will probably end up in the bodega as more storage. 

New larger bodega

The old narrow one that covered the well and wash area was not good protection and was badly made. Decided it was time to build a real one that can also work as a garage, cover for the trailer, keep the washing machine dry and be protection for the animals (sun and rain). Also stuccoed over the bricks on the back wall. Bodega will be 5x5 meters.

Beams are 4x4 palm and cross support pieces are 1x2 pine. They put up the cement pillar and beams a few weeks ago when doing more cement work. Thinking about putting a cement floor in but this is the last week so we'll see. I'm afraid I'll have to take out the bamboo as it is under one corner and will grow a lot with the rains. Sadly I have no place else to put it.