Well finally sitting down to post again, seems like it just takes 2 weeks to get it done. So here is the X spot photo:
and going to the right around the house we have photos of the Bread oven (pan orno) under construction on the corner of the house just outside the kitchen/ dining room.
another view showing the darker mortar in the oven portion. This is made with raw sugar (like molasses dried out) and then mixed with water and sand to bind the bricks. This is an old method of construction and 90% or so of the buildings in old town Quito are made with this system and they are 100's of years old.
Since it has taken me a while to update the blog here is a shot of the outside coating going on today after waiting for the sugar mortar to cure for a week.
We also added another fragrance to our environment in the form of three new potted Jasmine plants on our patio.
We had a heavy rain about a month back and the whole back yard flooded and drained over towards the back corner of the orchard. We have installed a concrete tube under the perimeter wall with rock up to the surface, hoping that this will solve the problem. Here is a shot of the opening.
We are in process of building 5 raised beds for root vegetables at the back of the orchard area. Here's a shot of them we still have to line them up, the guys should be back this afternoon to do that then we fill up with dirt and plant!!
Around the the left front of the house, we finally got rid of the dirt piles (the dirt is now spread out in the back and seeded with grass; we pray for small amounts of rain each night to get it to grow. You can see where we have landscaped to the side of the drive and planted three new trees and part of the lavender that will be in between them to form a border to the property.
Here is a closeup of that area
and a shot from the upstairs balcony shows the workers putting the finishing touches on the perimeter wall, it is now complete!!! you may have to double click the photo to enlarge it to really see it.
the foundation for the gate has been poured and should be installed this week...so that's it for today.
