Garry Weirsum, our new neighbor (who bought Kurt and Lissi's place next door) also bought the corner lot which belonged to Judith Johnson (Judith was planning to build here, but later decided she wants to stay in Japan and may build her home there).
Anyway, Garry's putting up a small two-storey place on that property. Here are a few shots of the progress. It'll have a small swimming pool in front, and the entryway to the garage is off our road. (These views are taken from our driveway.)
This A-Frame is right next door to our place, and used to belong to Alan Pringle. (Yep, Alan sold it last year to move to downtown Ciudad Colón, where he is much more mobile and connected with the town's community.) This was the first house we built here. The Pringles were living in Panama while we were working on the house. Later we moved into it for about 6 months until Alan was able to retire from his work as tour guide at the Panama Canal.
Now the new owner, Stephan Brunner, a Costa Rican of German decent, is really making some serious changes.
A-frames are not very practical, I can tell you from this experience. They supposedly combine the roof and walls, but it results in a narrow space, especially toward the top peak. There is a real need for dormers on the upper floor so that light can enter and one can feel more space. (We did build a dormer for the upstairs bathroom, but it's on the opposite side of the house.) That's what Stephan is doing. The shots below show the new addition. (Our house is just down the hill from this side.)
We started the tractor work on the spot where we're going to start building David's music studio, next door to their place on the property. This will serve as both a recording studio as well as a small apartment with an upstairs bedroom and kitchen area, eventually. We'll probably just try to get the studio part on the lower floor ready first, as they need to move David's equipment out of the new baby's bedroom in time for his/her June arrival!
Here's David, Gianni and Tato, her brother, looking on:Here's the back-hoe dragging the heaviest trunk of the Norfolk Pine away. (Note the old Mercedes is still parked in the space. We are trying to sell this oldy-but-goodie. Note also the license number on it!) The three chunks of the tree are being taken to our neighbor Garry's place where he'll saw them up for lumber: This big old stump was a a bunch of work to remove, but with a super strong back-hoe it was so much easier.
The tractor was able to move massive amounts of earth and level the area out, pretty much by eye.The finished cut (after 6 hours of tractor time--the minimum fee time period). We want to have the principal part of the studio well insulated from sound in the left-hand corner of the cut.
The trench for the rear retaining wall and studio wall has been cut out by the tractor (saving many man hours if we had to do it with picks and shovels). I just can't bear to remove another tree from the site. This is a bearing Guanabana tree. The fruit is one of the tropic's most delicious, and there are a number of fruits still on the tree. Unfortunately, this tree will eventually have to go, since it falls just about where the entryway to the studio will be. Here's a near-ripe Guanabana. It's about a foot long and weighs a few pounds. And they are yummy! (We have it wrapped in a soft net so that the wind won't blow it down before it's ready to harvest...probably next week.)
This post is especially for Colin, Aman and Isaiah who spent many a weekend polishing up the lawns and sidewalks of our local children's park. Our local Baha'i Community spend years constructing and maintaining this park for the town's children and their parents. At one point we had painted the wall in the rear with a wonderful scene of world children's faces (see photos below). The recent repainting of the benches was done (and the sidewalk--including the decorative brick 9-pointed star we made on the corner) by the Red Cross next door.
After a change of local government took over the park (interestingly, without a bit of recognition for our years of maintaining it) it was again abandoned for some time. I suppose the people next door got tired of looking at it and made these improvements. Here's a shot from years ago of the Baha'is casting the sidewalks (that's Ali in the shades).This is the original mural which Leonard Ericks spent weeks painting. The sidewalks and benches had not been made at this point:Here's another angle showing our sign which says: "The earth is one country and mankind it's citizens, Baha'u'llah" All the public buses and traffic passed right by this park every day, so thousands of people were able to appreciate this message.
We've been working on long overdue house repairs for some time now. Below shows the change of color to something we tried to match to the colors seen on the Baha'i Holy Places in Israel (blue-gray and white). We had to seal every one of the lapped siding strips, both at the ends and at the point where they overlap. Big job! Here's the finished coat. Missing is some paint on the upper part of the chimney, plus I'm building some wide wooden window frames which will be painted white. That'll make a big difference. We decided to take down years of Tricky-Tracky vines off the front because they were looking very scraggly and were not producing the wonderful orange flowers that they usually have. We just cut the vines back and will now direct each vine back across the beams on the front. We suspect that there were too many branches and not enough large trunks, so we'll see in a year or so how this plan works out. Notice that the wooden bay-window off the living room has been sealed and painted white. It was very deteriorated after more than 20 years in place, so now it looks like new again. You'll see the window border trim sometime next week, I hope. (Gotta be soon because we'll be heading Stateside for a big journey to visit all our family and friends on April 9th. More on that later.) The next phase of the work will be to finish the upstairs bathroom and to install the family-room ceiling.
This year's Naw-Rúz party was held at our place, and we were delighted with the great turnout. Especially that many of our Baha'is' invited guests showed up... Teen-age Jose, with Mike (& David, above), kept the music rolling :Some of our old and inactive Baha'is showed up--a great sign positive change!Marco making a move on the ladies :)Doña Lou with Maritza, whom we haven't seen in awhile... A huge and noisy party brought poor studious Jennifer out of her room, and she joined David, Gianni, Carolina and Jesse Gingold for this quick shot (catching Carolina an instant too soon...): We couldn't stop Vicky Mora and Jose from diving into the stack of dishes in the kitchen. They're supposed to be guests! When I dropped off Juan Luis at his house he wanted to show off his new kitty--so similar to our Butter Kitty--but who looks like he ran into a brick wall (with his pudgy nose):
Early Monday morning I went to our local agricultural products store in town to try to find out who may have purchased the insecticide which is the favorite lethal substance used in dog poisoning here. (It's called "Larnate".)
Interestingly, it turns out that about a month ago the government has severely restricted the distribution of this product, precisely because of such misuse. They are requiring a special authorization through health authorities for the purchase of it and there is a hefty fee for this. (Much more than a whimsical, and most likely uneducated, person could afford. Plus the insecticide is not cheap either.)
They explained that no one has purchased the stuff at this store in quite awhile, so I asked how someone might have acquired it elsewhere. It's doubtful that anyone did, apparently, unless they had it on hand from before the law was implemented.
So, I ask, what other explanation could they give to account for the reactions an animal would have, such as was described to me by the neighbor. (That is, the dog loses equilibrium, falls down and has convulsions, foams at the mouth, etc. I've seen this before a number of times, either with our own dogs or ones on the street in town.)
Surprisingly, they said that if a dog would eat one of the large toads we have around here, or if it were bitten by a snake, it would have a similar reaction. For this reason I'm beginning to think I was mistaken about the poisoning. Only God knows the truth...
For all of you who knew and loved our doggie, Jay Jay, (named by the grandchildren for the little cartoon airplane character), she was poisoned yesterday and was gone before I found out. (Had we known in time we could have saved her with some carbon anti-toxin pills we keep on hand--especially since she was such a large dog.)
A poisoned animal suffers horribly, and I'm very angry about this. Especially because she was loved by everybody and never bothered anyone or even barked at them. When the neighbors would meet her on the road going up the hill she would usually follow them up, wagging her tail and running ahead and back again to get a stroke. She accompanied me on my daily walks up the hill, waiting patiently while I rested and then scampered on ahead when I started again.
Near the top of our grade there are about five other dogs who love to claim their territory when we walk by. JJ usually ignored them, but this encounter was a little more aggressive by the brown dog. I'm still investigating the situation and believe I know who the person was who did this. They deny it so far, but I'm going to ask around at the feed store in town to see if I can find out who bought the poison recently. If I can prove who it is, I'll denounce them to the rural guard here. JJ deserves some justice!
I love the period of the Baha'i Fast! It's a great time to think about spiritual matters and reflect on why we are making this effort to purify ourselves, physically and spiritually. There are many mysterious powers that one can feel in action, especially when you know that millions of fellow Believers are doing the same!
Here's what I have for my pre-dawn breakfast. All blended up in a "smoothie". This keeps me going all day. Really! That's it. I don't have anything else until after sunset. I've been taking my walk up our hill just after the smoothy, and drink some water as I'm walking along. (In the past I went at night when it was nice and cool, but I think I like the morning walk better.)
I'm still feeling sad about having to down this tree. Here's the poor thing pushing up sap, trying to heal an impossible wound! And what hope: even a little branch is sprouting out of the fallen trunk... But there must be such sacrifices for "progress". Who's to decide? In the place will soon be a recording studio for David, and provisions made to the building so that it can also serve as a rental home for someone in the future. Soon we will plant other trees to shade it!
Marco Morales and I have initiated some home visit activities for our latest teaching campaign recently. Since Juan Luis' family has been attending many of our Baha'i activities, during the last one (Ayyam-I-Ha), we happened to be talking about our wooden chess set and Juan's wife, Sandra, mentioned that they have two sets at home which they have never been able to understand. So yesterday we went over to spend some time playing chess with her and the two kids, Sandri and Luis Alonzo. Marco was instructing a friend of their's, Miguel, while I was observing the kids figuring it out together. We all had a great time. (Sandra was very surprised to know that during the Baha'i Fast we do not drink water...or anything else. She wanted to prepare something for us.)
We're having so much fun chatting with Aria & James, and mostly Sasha, via Skype with a video camera and sound. It's the greatest! Here's "Mima" (grandma) speaking with Sasha.
I've mentioned that we're fixing up the house in preparation for our two month exit in April. Here are the noticeable changes. Julie always loved the Baha'i World Center blue and white, so we're trying to match that color of blue and will be installing white trim around the windows. What a difference! The white was getting really nasty looking. (See the 3rd storey siding to get what I mean...maybe it can be seen on a zoom.)
The nickname "Bumpa" came from my grandson, Aman, who had a hard time when he was little saying "grandpa". My wife, Julie, and I are members of the Baha'i Faith, and are dedicating our lives to the betterment of mankind in the form of service. She's a great teacher of children (our kids are a perfect testimony to that!) and a wonderful companion to her husband.
I have been a building contractor and now, semi-retired, do home inspections in all parts of Costa Rica
