Varnishing

One flight varnished, one to go.

Our posh new floor.

The finished tapanco.

Another varnishing job (with help from the cat)

 

Recent weeks have been dedicated to sanding and varnishing - with a lot of help from Daisy's dad.  And very nice it looks, too. 

The little one should be born in June, so the next little project is to get the cot (which Steve's aunty has kindly lent us) varnished.  If the cat lets us... 

The start of the never-ending finishing touches

Now that we're a bit more settled we're able to think about the details.  We've planted four cacti in the designated cactus pot at the top of the stairs:  with the hot and dry conditions up there they should hopefully be quite spectacular one day.

We still need to paint the walls behind the compost bins, but other than that, outside is quite presentable! 

Dry Toilets - The Underworld

1- Adding worms to the most recent box

Feel free to scroll away if this grosses you out, but hopefully it doesn't, because this is the future!

The process in the dark underworld goes something like this. The pictures are numbered.

After about two weeks of being in place, the box below the toilet should be taken out. Worms are added, to speed up the composting process.

As in picture 2, you can add ash or sawdust to help prevent any smells; this isn't necessary though - sometimes we do, sometimes we don't!

2- Adding optional ash

In picture 3 you can see the mesh cover we place over the most recently used box. This stops larger insects or creatures getting in. By the time the next box is taken out (two weeks later), the mesh cover is no longer needed.

3 - The most recent box needs a mesh cover

After two months of lombricomposting, a box can be emptied into a compost bin for storage or the compost can be used, (see picture 4).

4 - After two months, empty a box into the compost bin

Pictures 5 & 6 should be quite self-explanatory: an empty box is put in place, below the dry (separating) toilet, ready for the cycle to start again. Four of these large boxes is recommendable for a two-person household.

5 - Putting an empty box below the toilet

6 - Ready for more!

World Toilet Day

On World Toilet Day we decided to celebrate our dry toilet with a few photos and a blog post.
From the outside it looks like a normal toilet until you open the lid and find the two separate bits: one for urine and one for anything more solid.

Daisy says it's useful to sit slightly further forward than you usually would when you want to pee, as it stops any liquid going down the dry part. Keeping it dry is one of the keys to keeping it smell-free.

The other important method to stop your dry toilet smelling seems to be aiming your soil/sawdust/ash well! We use a piece of card as shown here to stop the soil going down the pee hole, and with a bit of practice it's very easy and fast to cover everything well.

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.