It seems like a long time since I made a Blog entry, so I may just ramble about what I have been doing. As I am sure most of you know, there was a very cold arctic weather system that dropped from Canada. We even noticed it here. The weekend after our camp-out, it was snowing in northern Mexico. I did not snow at Refuge Ranch but it felt like it could. It did snow on Mount Popo, so we tried to take the kids to see the snow on Sunday after church. Unfortunately we were not the only ones with that idea. The police had closed the road because there were too many cars up on the mountain. However, we did see some snowmen coming down the road toward us. People had built snowmen on their cars, and were taking them home. I wonder how far they got. There must have been quite a bit of snow for all the snowmen we saw.
Snowmen on a van coming down the mountainIt continued to be cold and rainy for the next few days. Lucy even bought gloves for herself. This is supposed to be the dry season. I guess that is OK, since we aren't dealing with a lot of dust yet. The rain also was good because it let us know that the roof of the apartment needed to be sealed.
With the Zaragozas gone on vacation it has been pretty quiet here. I used this to my advantage, because there were a few little fix-it projects I wanted to take care of. The biggest was the leaky kitchen faucet. For some reason even the smallest plumbing projects can take all day. I began by fixing the hot water that would not shut off, but also discovered another leak under the sink. The good news is that it only took one trip for parts and I think it is all fixed. I am glad we Americans were the only ones here that day since I had the water for the kitchen sink turned off for a while. The other big project was repairing Julie's desk in the school. It is built from a large piece of counter top on top of two small file cabinets. The problem was that when the kids leaned on the front of it, everything on top dumped on the floor as the top tipped. The drawers were in rough shape too, so I did a little work on each drawer. They should last a little longer now. I hope she does not want to move it now because it is all fastened together, and will be hard to move very far. I also worked on one or two small things around the house while it was quiet and there weren't little hands to wander off with tools I left on the floor.
Cirino and Alejandro have been working on the apartment roof, adding cement to the low areas so water won't stand on the roof. They have also been plastering the walls that will be the new section of the school. The work on the roof had to happen between rains so it took a long time. I have been finishing drywall seams and doing wiring in the apartment. Some of the electrical has to be surface mounted on the cement, so I have been installing conduit too.
Yesterday and today have been much nicer, in terms of weather. Cirino had told me last week that we would be able to seal the roof on Tuesday. I thought to myself, "If it stops raining." He was right. Yesterday I began putting sealer on the roof. I was surprised by how much loose dust there was. As I started putting the thick red sealer on the surface, I was having trouble getting it to cover because of the dust and the rough texture. I was about to go look for help when Lucy asked if I needed any thing. She came up and started sweeping the roof. The more she swept, the more dust there was. But she stuck with it and stayed ahead of the sealer. Aaron came up about the same time and started applying sealer with me. We had to work the sealer into the rough surface to get it to cover. Before we were finished, Lucy had giant blisters on her hands (I told her to quit or get some gloves, but she refused), Aaron and I were both stiff from bending even with the long handles on the brushes, and sunburned where we had missed with sunscreen. It was hot enough I put shorts on for the afternoon. What a great change in the weather. We worked until almost sundown and used more than half of the all the sealer we had for one coat on the apartment section of the basement. Today Aaron and I did the second coat. It was much easier and the sealer went much further. We got along very well and were finished and cleaning up by 4:00pm. Aaron said he was glad to help today because it kept him busy while he is waiting for his grandma and grandpa who are arriving for a visit tomorrow. We are all excited about that.
With the Zaragozas gone on vacation it has been pretty quiet here. I used this to my advantage, because there were a few little fix-it projects I wanted to take care of. The biggest was the leaky kitchen faucet. For some reason even the smallest plumbing projects can take all day. I began by fixing the hot water that would not shut off, but also discovered another leak under the sink. The good news is that it only took one trip for parts and I think it is all fixed. I am glad we Americans were the only ones here that day since I had the water for the kitchen sink turned off for a while. The other big project was repairing Julie's desk in the school. It is built from a large piece of counter top on top of two small file cabinets. The problem was that when the kids leaned on the front of it, everything on top dumped on the floor as the top tipped. The drawers were in rough shape too, so I did a little work on each drawer. They should last a little longer now. I hope she does not want to move it now because it is all fastened together, and will be hard to move very far. I also worked on one or two small things around the house while it was quiet and there weren't little hands to wander off with tools I left on the floor.
Cirino and Alejandro have been working on the apartment roof, adding cement to the low areas so water won't stand on the roof. They have also been plastering the walls that will be the new section of the school. The work on the roof had to happen between rains so it took a long time. I have been finishing drywall seams and doing wiring in the apartment. Some of the electrical has to be surface mounted on the cement, so I have been installing conduit too.
Yesterday and today have been much nicer, in terms of weather. Cirino had told me last week that we would be able to seal the roof on Tuesday. I thought to myself, "If it stops raining." He was right. Yesterday I began putting sealer on the roof. I was surprised by how much loose dust there was. As I started putting the thick red sealer on the surface, I was having trouble getting it to cover because of the dust and the rough texture. I was about to go look for help when Lucy asked if I needed any thing. She came up and started sweeping the roof. The more she swept, the more dust there was. But she stuck with it and stayed ahead of the sealer. Aaron came up about the same time and started applying sealer with me. We had to work the sealer into the rough surface to get it to cover. Before we were finished, Lucy had giant blisters on her hands (I told her to quit or get some gloves, but she refused), Aaron and I were both stiff from bending even with the long handles on the brushes, and sunburned where we had missed with sunscreen. It was hot enough I put shorts on for the afternoon. What a great change in the weather. We worked until almost sundown and used more than half of the all the sealer we had for one coat on the apartment section of the basement. Today Aaron and I did the second coat. It was much easier and the sealer went much further. We got along very well and were finished and cleaning up by 4:00pm. Aaron said he was glad to help today because it kept him busy while he is waiting for his grandma and grandpa who are arriving for a visit tomorrow. We are all excited about that.
Aaron and Mark sealing the roofWell, the Zaragozas are home so I want to hear about what they did on vacation.
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