More Creatures...

Appi the cat on the day we got her.

This poor possum/tlacuache had been injured by the local dogs.

 We've been in the house for 6 weeks now, and are still very happy with it. Rainy season finally seems to have come to an end, so it's nice to see things dry up, although night-time temperatures have felt pretty low. We've used the stove a few times as you can see in one of these photos.

We're still amazed by all the wildlife so we couldn't help posting about the latest sightings. Today I saw a praying mantis too, but it wasn't in our garden so it's not included here!

If anybody knows what this is then do tell!

Local lizard.

Some dining room creatures.

Appi enjoying a lap in front of the fire.

Progress in the garage

Rebuilding the west wall

Mid-'colado'

Preparing the roof

None of these photos show what the garage actually looks like now, as the cement roof/patio is done - although it might be a while before we can afford the finishing touches to the patio.

It's a nice, big, flat, sunny space, even if it does look ugly at the moment.

Bathrooms are finished

We've had previous photos of the bathrooms looking finished, but I felt I had to include a photo of one of the urinals - it took us six months to get hold of them, after all!

There's the downstairs toilet, too - with accompanying bucket of soil mixed with sawdust, and a shovel. It's working well so far!

The stove

The cold evenings (thanks to the window-fitter who hasn't finished his job) gave us a gentle persuasion to start using our stove, which we actually really enjoyed. Not only did the ventilation seem right, but the chimney worked fantastically at warming up the main bedroom. The kitchen, of course, was much warmer, even with no windows!

Visitors

It's been nice to have visitors in our new home! My mum and abuelito enjoyed the sunny dining-room area, and abuelito seemed to be more impressed with it all than the last time he came.

The lack of glass in many of the windows means that the temperature drops to about 15 or 16 in the evening, and 13 or 14c in the early mornings. It has also meant that we've had plenty of insects, (but interestingly none that have really bothered us - no mosquitoes, for instance).

Here's a stick insect who seems particularly fond of the thermometer.

The upstairs bathroom window makes for a fish bowl type effect as long as the outside light is on - there are all sorts of insects to look at... close up! Here's a rather odd wonky moth, of which there are quite a lot, and a big, friendly green grasshopper with wings.

Moving in day (24th August 2012)

Daisy enjoying the view from the bed

A cow enjoying our garden on the day we moved in

 The time has finally come!
It's almost a bit surreal at the moment, particularly as we're both very tired. We dodged the rain showers today to make a final push with moving, and Alfonso finished off the gas installation and proved to us that it all worked.







I had to interrupt the moving for a couple of minutes to laugh at the cow munching its way up our meandering back garden path. A sign of health and good living to christen the house on moving-in day, perhaps?





There's a snap here of both of us eating our first meal in the house, a giant ciabatta sandwich.

A lucky small spider got a feast of a meal this evening when this poor beetle had its kitchen inspection interrupted.

First meal in the house!

Yet another insect photo

The bed ready to be slept in for the first time.

Last few touches before moving in

 Over the past week everybody's been working full-steam, as we found out on Monday that we need to move out (and in) as soon as possible.  The chimneys are now in place and ready to be used... although nobody's tried them out yet.   The chimney 'hats' give the house an unmistakable look.

Steve's also been busy at work, and showed off his DIY skills today (most of the time in his pants).  We now have a very nicely fitted door frame and door on the main bedroom.

Those that are ready to move in...

 News a few days ago about our landlady wanting to return to her house (where we've been living the past six months), has meant that this weekend has been quite manic.

As you'll see in the next post, fitting a door took longer than expected so by the time it got dark, the glassless windows let in a lot of moths and butterflies. Here they are enjoying Daisy's back.

This is one of the local leopard butteflies, (or moth?).

... and this is the Guard-Frog, who likes to sit just by the front door.

Outside - five weeks on

Things are going fine outside too; everything looks a lot smarter than it did. There's plenty of water in the cistern and the water pump is now working.

Hopefully this week we'll get the water heater in, which will make it that bit closer to being liveable!

Most of the work on the roofed compost bins has been done and that may well provide us with photos for the next installment.

The garden, on the other hand, was very overgrown - Daisy did lots of grass & weed cutting while Steve was off racing. Her reward was seeing a flock of migrating parrots fly overhead!

The inside - five weeks on

After a month away and some kind visits to keep the builders in check courtesy of Steve's mum and the architect, it was a very pleasant surprise to step inside.

The floors are finished, the walls are painted, only the woodwork needs some varnish.

We picked up our clay chimney pipes and they'll soon be fitted to the wood-burning water heater and the stove.

Progress in the Jungle

 A rather silly title today, (nothing new there then...) However, the view out of the main bedroom window shows what things are like here in rainy season.

The covers to the filters and the water tanks are now done and partly in place.

A Geometry Lesson

The photo on the right is taken from the stairwell between the top two floors.

Shiny!

Two pics of the kitchen with its newly tiled surface. Daisy fortunately happened to be around when Hector was about to lay the draining board area and asked him to create a gentle slope towards the sink.

Demonstrating my yoga
skills - otherwise known
as sitting on a bench.

The downstairs bathroom is getting tidier too, in fact the builders seem to have set down a rule that you can't go in there with shoes on!