The Never Ending Bridge Saga

This photo shows the last bit of work done on the bridge near the Sibulan ice plant,  when concrete was poured into forms one week ago. There hasn't been any work done on the bridge since then. I'm no expert, but I suspect they're waiting for the concrete to cure.

Yesterday morning, I noticed that both cement mixers had been removed from the bridge work site. There is another bridge project at the end of Diputado Street on the way to Tubtubon; workers were pouring concrete there, so I suppose that's were the cement mixers were taken.

This morning, one of the cement mixer had been relocated to "our" bridge. Perhaps that's a sign that work will be resumed before long. Just how long is anybody's guess.

Starting the Fence

Post and fencing wire was delivered to the property in Magatas this morning. After the banana plants and coconut tree were taken care of, my wife's Papa and a helper began work on the fence.

The men were unable to finish today. Two sections need to be moved tomorrow. The section on the northern side, which goes along the right of way, needs to moved further out by 1 1/2 meters.

The old fence which runs along the eastern side will be removed. This will bring together our two lots which have previously been divided. The posts from the eastern side will then be used for the fence that will run along the northern side.

I'm sure the fence will be completed tomorrow.

There's an uprooted tree stump which will be removed as well. When all thats done, I'll make a place to transplant the new squash plants. These plants will be on the opposite end of the property from the piggery. I'm placing the plants far enough away from the work area so we don't have a repeat of two weeks ago when men delivering concrete blocks destroyed plants that I had set out.

The Banana Plants and Coconut Tree

Before starting on the piggery, we have a section of old fence to move and new fence to put up. We began that project this morning.

We had previously marked out where fence posts were to be placed, and a coconut tree, which we had cut down awhile back, was straddling the fence line. We brought in two guys after lunch to cut up the tree into usable lumber. The lumber will be put to use on the pig pen/chicken coop.


The man with the chain saw knows his work. I was impressed with his accuracy and precision in cutting out the boards.

Not only was there a fallen coconut tree that needed to be taken care of, but there was also a cluster of banana plants slap dab along the fence line. The fence needs to go right through the center. The worker helping with the fence had to remove sections of the banana plants. We won't remove the entire bunch until the bananas are harvested off these plants.

Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World

After finishing  The Master and Margarita in March, I began reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's, The Gulag Archipelago. I found reading that particular book difficult. As I mentioned in an earlier post:
"Solzhenitsyn's book is quite remarkable, but I can only read relatively small portions at a time. His description of the tortures the inmates had to endure is difficult for me to take. I'm still working my way through the book, but I am going back and forth between it and other reading material in order to keep my sanity."

Not being able to take large doses of The Gulag Archipelago, I took up reading books that weren't as intense. Of the nine I've read since the middle of March, I've read a few books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, discovered a new favorite in Marie Belloc Lowndes, and read William Faulkner's novel, Sanctuary, to name just a few.

I picked up a copy for Kindle, of Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! . I attempted to read Absalom, Absalom! several years ago, but set it aside. I've plowed my way through 50% of the novel this time, but I don't see myself ever finishing it. Maybe it's simply over my head, but I find the novel tedious, to say the least. I like commas as well as the next fellow, I use them often enough myself, but Faulkner's sentences can be unbearably long, and I haven't even made it to the longest sentence in Literature as written in Chapter six.

In her novel, A Chink in the Armour, Marie Belloc Lowndes uses the word brobdingnagian, which lead me to recall that I haven't actually read Gulliver's Travels. Like everyone else, I was familiar with the portions of the book that covered the voyage to Lilliput, but was unfamiliar with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th parts of the satire. To remedy that, I've downloaded the work from Project Gutenberg and started in on reading it. I'm currently reading the 2nd part.

The only comment I have so far, is that, in the sections I've read so far, it seems to me that Swift mentions Gulliver's defecating and urinating more often than I realized. You don't get that in the movies or cartoon versions of the story.

Clouds

This photo, taken this morning, shows clouds coming in off the ocean in the East, giving us hope that we might get a little rain today.

We had the same hope yesterday. At around 2:00 PM, I noticed clouds gathering, heading toward us. There was a feeling of rain in the air. After a two hour wait, rain finally arrived yesterday afternoon. Sadly it was barely a sprinkle that didn't last more than 20 or thirty minutes. A thirty minute rain would have been fine, if it had rained harder. A light sprinkle would have been OK too, if it had lasted for 2 or 3 hours.

Normally, after April's dry spell, we can expect the rains to return in May. So far, this month, we haven't been so lucky.