Projects and Projections

I started this posting in mid-January.  It got mired down with internet-connection problems and was also in competition with a number of other projects, so was considerably delayed.

The year 2014 seemed to end with about a thousand things all happening at the same time. We managed to at least get started on quite a few of the back-logged projects, and have some hopes of getting most of our needed "Infrastructure" in place within the next year.  The in-town property is pretty well finished except for some up-grades to kitchen and bathroom in the older house.  Since we seem to be getting along OK with things as they are, there, our attention will shift to developing the farm- property which is a little over a mile away from the house.

This is the "nipa" house which sits on the vegetable-garden side
of our farm property.  The front field is 60 or 70 feet deep from
the road back to the house, and about twice that width along
the road frontage.  The field beyond the house is about 1.5
times the size of the front field; together they will make a fine
large area for a "truck-farm" and small dairy operation. Not
seen because of the tree at right side, is a rocky hill dividing the
property, which is the same height and 4x the size of the house.
We will need a small concrete house in-place, to be able to 
secure tools and supplies for our food-production; we hope
to build the house sometime in mid- 2015.

The first task was to provide a parking and turn-around area
for vehicles; the gravel road is large enough for 4- to 5- ton
trucks but there are very few passing or turn-around points. The
10-inch tree stump was primarily cut out with a machete; the
pick- work in the background is to prepare a drainage ditch so
that a small cement bridge (culvert) can be built over it.  This
photo is with the nipa house behind me and to my right.

Large rocks are collected from a hillside, and later from the
riverbed (16-foot climb), to use for building the vehicle pad.
All are hand-carried in re-used cement sacks.

 Interesting to note that this area, which is a mile from the sea and elevated, has quite a few rocks with small sea-fossils and occasionally a larger fossilized shell.  It must have been sea-bed sometime in the past.

Meanwhile, the sides of the drainage ditch have been lined
with large stones where the drive-in will be.  These stones
will be covered with cement, and then sticks and scrap ply-
wood will be used to form and pour a reinforced- cement
bridge/ culvert for vehicles to enter and exit the parking pad.

A little later on this day, my camera battery "cooked" itself, and I wasn't able to make photos of the project being completed.. This was my "substitute" camera, a small video-cam I had been using to take "still- photos"  since my Sanyo pocket camera had also worn out and broken.  The remaining photos are either from files stored in the laptop-computer, or taken with the cell-phone (difficult and poor quality).

Here is what the completed parking pad looked like;  there
is room for a medium-sized truck to deliver building materials
here, now.  Every single rock was carried in a sack to be hand-
placed for the parking area, and all the cement for the ditch
and bridge was mixed with shovels and poured from buckets.
Visible from this angle is the hill mentioned at photo 1 above.

A few weeks after the previous photo, the Suzuki was fitted
with roof- bars and rear-arch to enable carrying longer
objects.  I did the fabrication and fitting, only having to
take the project at its various stages to a local welder.  
The elapsed time for the project was about 3 weeks, and
I conservatively estimate that I put 40 hours of "hands-
on" effort into completing it.  Previous "carry" was limited
to about 8- foot long; one frequent carry now will be the
10-foot rolled-up rice mat.  I have meanwhile carried
20-foot lengths of pipe and angle-iron easily.

This Gmelina tree stood at the corner of the nipa house.  This
species (sounds like "Jim-Molina") is also called beechwood 
and white teak.   Wikipedia mentions it in locations from Africa
to Australia.  It is used extensively for re-forestation because
it grows quickly and produces straight trunks and limbs.  At
maturity, this one was suspected of having hollows which would
weaken it and create a storm- hazard, so it was removed.  The
lower trunk, upper trunk, and single main limb all produced
slabs 14- feet long of fine, clear wood.  The cost of having
these slabs moved 1 mile was one motivation for building
the carry-rack system on the Suzuki.

A different project which caught my eye is this 3- story house
which is under construction nearby.  Sand and gravel is being
carried in sacks from a pile to the left of the photo; mixed into
cement at center (mechanical mixer is not common here for
a house project); passed in buckets up a series of  scaffold-
ramps to where the 3rd floor is being poured.  I counted 30+
workers, also very unusual for a house project.  This scene
reminded me VERY MUCH of poster art I used to see, which
was pen-and-ink drawings of large-scale projects with lots
of  people doing different things. (A little like Grandma Moses?)

One late-2014 project was constructing a storage building in
our poultry yard.  Concrete building projects here begin with
cutting and bending steel re-bar into "loops" which will be
tied together with lengths of re-bar for reinforcing poured
concrete. Several of the 2013 blogs show typical construction
process here, from when we built the house.  See the
navigation links at the  upper right corner of this page.

Deep, solid concrete piers will support poured-posts which
are incorporated into the cement-block walls.  These piers
are also tied with re-bar into the footings for the walls, and
into horizontal and vertical re-bar running through the walls.

As the walls begin to rise above ground level, the
size of the building becomes more apparent. 

A little over 2 weeks after start, the building was
completed.  This allows us to store our rice harvests
either for our own use or to be sold when the price
reaches the upper end of fluctuations.  It should
help to pay for the needed house at the farm. 

 Bernadette's brother Alex visited with us for about 6 months,
and in-between our projects he built several fishing boats.
There is a "Boats and Fishing" blog in the 2013 postings which
gives some detail about how the canoes are constructed.  But
I learned a few new things as I watched these being built.

 This plank was hand-sawn to about 3/4- inch thickness, from
a thicker slab. I still use my hand-saws frequently for small
fairly quick cutting, but it's hard for me to imagine the amount
of effort and patience it would take to hand-saw this.

  I hadn't known before this that all the nails used to build
the boats are copper, to prevent them from rusting out.

This one was painted a wonderful green color, as the newer
boats are beginning to get away from the "stock color" aqua
blue which has been standard.  The Owl and the Pussycat
would love it, I think.

I got my camera situation sorted out on a trip to Iloilo in early February.

  
On the return trip I managed to get a few scenic photos; there are several large, old Spanish churches along the route.

Our 130-mile-triangle island is quite mountainous, so there
are lots of rivers; unusual to drive more than a couple miles
on the coastal highway without crossing a bridge.  Mostly they
are concrete -piling and -girder bridges now, but a few of
the old steel "kit- bridges" remain in use.  This one seems
to be something over 500 yards long.

We stop fairly often at this roadside business; an hour's drive
from "start," it makes a convenient leg-stretch.  Despite the
owner's name "Lourdes" I haven't experienced any unexplained
healing.   Toyota and Mitsubishi both make jeep-looking
cars like the red one here, and likely it's one of those.

"Just in passing," the men's facility at Lourdes had been a

cement gutter, still visible, which was on two sides of the

room; it was hosed with water occasionally.  So it was

quite a surprise to  see this elegant upgrade, made from

5-gallon plastic water-cooler bottles.  A segment of the

bottom and side of each has been cut and formed into a

 "catchment apron", and each unit is set into place in a hole

cut into the 4- inch drain pipe which is installed above

the old "trough."  (Sorry, ladies, it's a "GUY THING.")

Despite the subject, it IS an ingenious project, and they

did a stand-up job with it.

Feb. 21, I planned to go to the newly built moto-cross race

track, nearby and watch a couple of the races which were

part of the annual  Municipal Festival.  I got there early and

backed the tailgate clear up to the rope- boundary for the

track, at the best high-spot overview.  I hadn't planned to

be there all day, but within a short while we were completely

blocked in by spectators and other vehicles.  We never got

away until after 5 p.m.

The track is in an "unbuildable" (gets flooded) low-spot, about 

120 x 120 yards; It has an "L" shaped loop which goes mostly around

the outside, and about 9  "legs" which run back and forth in the middle,

with tight switch-back turns between them.  It would be nearly 3/4 mile

length, really rough, and with many jumps and "rhythm section"

mounds in between the curves.

There were finally about 10 races that day, in various bike-

sizes and skill-levels.  A nice breeze blew a lot of the dust

away from us, but we still washed about 100 pounds

off the car afterward.

"Zaccheus and friends?"  The tree next to the car was  fully

utilized all day long, and at one time I was able to count 18

occupants, a little hard to do because they were pretty

tangled up among the branches.

There were several well-skilled riders who put on a good show 

for us, and a number of relatively- newbies who added a lot

of spontaneity to the mixture.  This "best jump I caught"

also shows a little about the amount of dust, as he was

about 25 yards from us.  Everyone had a good time, there

were just enough spills to be interesting, and nobody got hurt.

Well, it is nearly 2 p.m. on Feb. 23rd.  The room I'm sitting in is on the relatively "cool" side of this house, and I am wearing my "ADAM Signature Brand tailored shirt," but the electric fan is still required for comfort.  In California, the temperatures are around 40 F, overnight,  and mid- 60s daytime, give or take a little, in Modesto and in San Luis Obispo.  Around the La Grange, KY, area the temperatures are well below 32 F. both daytime and night, and in fact have been in the singles and teens a lot of the time, with snowpack over ice accumulation and wind-chills down below minus 10 F.  I don't miss the KY winter all that much, but sometimes I "get a hankering" for a crisp feeling day

Hoping and intending to get back on track with the blog postings - - we'll see how it goes!

We trust that all of you are "finding the blessings along the way" in 2015, and that you will continually find the right mix of challenge and satisfaction in all that you do.

Tim and Bernadette Larson

Panay Island

Antique Province  (Spanish pronunciation, "ann-TEE-kay)

Philippines

LINK:

Google Map view of our "larger area".

Two Anniversaries

(Writing begun on Nov. 7, 2014, and continuing until publication date)

A year ago today, I waited with moderate concern for the arrival of the super-typhoon "Yolanda."  Perhaps if I could have foreseen all of the effects on our life here, in the aftermath of this enormous storm, my concern would have been greater.

I should mention that typhoon "Yolanda" is everywhere else called Haiyan.  It seems that the Philippine Government considers it necessary to call every weather event by a different name than the rest of the world.  This has the benefit of providing employment for whoever has the responsibility of selecting the extra set of names.

Two years ago today, we were one week short of arriving in the Philippines to begin our retirement adventure.  Our arrival date, November 15, 2012, meant that we were just approaching our one-year "retrospective" (2013) when a fair amount of our little "world" was blown away by the typhoon.  

This is the first house which we had built here in about 2007,

five years before we were able to move here.  It looked just

about like this until a month ago, when we were able to do

some painting and dressing-it-up.  In our immediate  little

street area, about half the houses were similar a year ago, 

and half were more substantial.

 But within 100 yards of us, on the "beach" side of the National

Highway, the type of housing shifts from modest concrete- to

quite a few "native" houses constructed of bamboo and local

lumber.  This particular house always impressed me because

it was carefully maintained and very neat - - the "cottage with a

little picket fence" effect.  The always- warm temperatures here

mean that this type of home is adequate most of the time; a

little like the cabins in a state  or national park in the USA. 

The vast difference between the ooh- soo- neat little cottage

and our place shows on the morning after the typhoon.  Our

place would still look almost exactly the same as "photo number

one," but the huge  power of  185 mile-per-hour winds had pretty

much flattened anything which wasn't reinforced concrete.

My intention for this posting is not to present lots of "before and after" coverage of the typhoon, however.  It seems to me that it might be interesting to reflect a little about how quickly things can change at times - in a few hours, in the case of the typhoon's impact - and how slowly things seem to happen at other times, as in our personal adaptation to living here in the Philippines.  There has been a lot to learn;  mostly in the "affective" areas for me - in adjusting my attitude away from a sense of urgency about completing hoped-for projects, and in learning to appreciate each blessing and  convenience which comes into our lives.

It is the coincidence of the two events being almost exactly a year apart which seems to "overlay" them in my mind.

Most structures in our area are now replaced or repaired.  In the eastern part of our island (named "Panay") the damage was much more severe to concrete - and all other - structures as Haiyan made its first landfall from that direction and passed 100 miles overland and through mountains before we received our visit.  In that area, there are large sections of concrete-block walls still missing from buildings - but people have reinforced and re-roofed, and are mostly living "as usual."   We personally were blessed to have only minor damages to our metal roofing, easily repaired.

The Philippines in general is in a good period economically; I saw on a chart recently that the economic growth rate here is at 7.2% - only one or two other Asian countries which were listed have better economies.  For non-economists, I mention that I seem to remember that 4% growth is considered pretty healthy.  There is a building boom happening here which exceeds mere replacement of damaged infrastructure.  In the last year, for example, the number of gasoline stations in the 120-mile area we frequent appears to have nearly doubled; and I don't think there was any shortage of stations before.  (And in the last few months, the fuel prices have gone down something-like 60- cents per gallon). (Gasoline here is about $4.65 per gallon) (We're selective about when and where we drive)

There are lots of topics I could type to you - and I'm tempted to try to explain things with words, here!  But I am already pretty far beyond my usual "text - to - photo" ratio I think, so I'll begin putting up some photos and will try to organize them around subject-matter.

First, I haven't systematically put up photos of our place here in Malabor (neighborhood's name) Tibiao (municipality), on this Blog.  I have sent a few in e-mails to some of my readers, though.  In-town lots here are usually small; we have a "main" lot which is 40 x 80 feet, and a separated lot 40 x 60 which we use for a poultry yard.

 Standing near the middle of our 80- foot street frontage, the

older house shown also in "photo number one" above now

has its paint. job in place.  This house has our kitchen and

living rooms, plus 2 bedrooms and a bath.  

 The middle of the lot has a patio-like kitchen behind the

vehicle, and a water-storage tower and small bamboo

building just to the left.

Shifting view to the farthest left, the west end of our lot has

the hewer house, completed in July 2013; this has a workshop, 

a master bedroom- with- bath, and some storage space.  Getting

street-view photos is a little challenge, as the street is narrow,

perhaps 12- or 14- feet wide, paved with concrete 8- feet wide.

My purpose in showing the above is to try to give you a little sense of what it is like to live in a small neighborhood here.  We are well blessed to be pretty comfortable and secure here;  but as mentioned above, I have learned to appreciate things I wouldn't look twice at in the USA, a few of which I'll show.

 Chain-link fencing wire is widely available here;

galvanized pipe for posts is not hard to get.  For

any OTHER fencing material, such as brackets and

adapters you'd get from a hardware store in the US,

you're pretty much on your own.  Make them from-

scratch.  We needed a rolling gate-panel in front of

the vehicle, and this shows the fabrication of the

nose-wheel of the gate.  I show these 2 or 3 photos

before-paint so details are easier to see. 

Similarly, tail-wheels, angle-iron tracks, and flat-

metal "u"-clamps were all formed by hand and welded

as necessary.  This fence is painted and complete

 in the farther-above photos. (Looks better!)

You're on your own if you need a swing-gate latch,

too.  We just used the chain- around- the- post for

a long time.  Then one day I noticed a broken pop-

rivet tool lying around, and "presto," its handle

 became a nice spring-loaded latch bar.

My intent is to illustrate some "little stuff" you just would hardly think about in the USA.  In the case of the fence, with "bought ready-made" components it might have gone up in a day or

two.  "Inventing" and fabricating the items brought the project to about 10 days.  Kind of a pain in the neck at times, but - hey! - I'm retired, my time is my own, and I mostly like  tinker-ing around with things.

Items like doors and other fittings for a house are all made-to-

order by local tradespeople.  I have seen no "off the shelf" screen

doors, for example.  Years ago I saw a door with false-Victorian

looking corner blocks - made with simple hole-saw and drill-bit

work.  My door ended up a little "busier" looking than I had

thought, but still acceptable.  (One description offered was

"cheesy." My response was neutral.)  (Will anyone pick up

that "double- quip?"  I wonder - - -)

This Suzuki "double-cab" truck has been with us for about 2

months.  Many of these come into the Philippines as "Japan

 surplus" in very good condition; the double-cabs like this one

arrive as mini-vans and are converted here by having the

back section "chopped" into a pickup- bed.  It has proven

to be a real handy and practical little vehicle.   It checked out

at about 33 miles-per-gallon one time, and I'm told that at

least in theory it could get around 40 m.p.g.  And it's peppy

and fun to drive. 

"Technical" notes;  it has a 3- cyl. 660 cc. engine, water cooled, "pancake mounted" above the rear axle.  The radiator is at the front - meaning very long hoses/ pipes. There is a standard-looking transaxle, a manual 5- speed.  The engine-weight over the back axle is roughly equal to the 2 passengers weight over the front axle, so it has a nicely balanced "feel" when driving.  Comparison:  My Honda motorcycle was a 750 cc.  Most sub-compact U.S. cars have engines about 1,500 cc. and larger.  Our Buicks  were 3,800 cc.  That is why the gutsy performance of this tiny engine surprises me.

Side-note about license plates:  here, the "tags" are not made until  a vehicle is registered and assigned its number; then, they are made- to- order and may take a few months to

arrive.  Many vehicles drive around with handmade temporary tags.

NOTE: I nearly always convert measures to U.S.A. standards, for the sake of my readers. But here in the Philippines, all measurements are metric.  The car's actual fuel usage was 13.8 km per liter, for example.   The money is pesos, and I usually convert that to dollars so

Americans can get a sense of what things cost here.  It happens by coincidence that just for now the peso- per- dollar rate makes prices of pesos- per- kilogram almost exactly equal the price in pennies- per- pound - - - 100 pesos- per- kilo is almost exactly one dollar per pound.

And, OUR beef is costing about 220.  (but 220 pesos is a day's pay, maybe more, for 2.2 pounds of meat)

My mention of the money, above, reminded me that I have

not explained about Philippine money in this blog.  Here is

what the coins look like.  The lower-left is a Peso coin, the

basic "unit" here.  We use 40-per-dollar as a general estimate

of peso-value, making it roughly 2.5 cents USA.  Right now

the rate is actually between 44 and 45, which is a fairly large

difference, 10- percent.  The other 2 coins in the lower

row are 5-peso and 10-peso.  The upper row are 5-, 10-, 

and 25- "sentima" (means cent) coins.  For all practical

purposes they are nearly worthless, and many businesses

round-off their prices to even pesos - remember, two pesos

is less than 5-cents USA, at this moment.  The red object is

a coke-bottle cap used for size-comparison.  The peso-coin

is slightly larger than an American nickel.  I had thought

that the pesos were probably stainless steel, but one day I

found a couple of them stuck to a magnet.

Philippine paper money (no photo, sorry!) is normal-looking notes in pastel colors which range from light-orange through pink, yellow, and tan, to light violet.  They are all about the same size as USA paper currency. They DO have various holographic and other technology to discourage counterfeiting. The denominations are 20-, 50-, 100-, 200-, 500-, and 1,000- pesos.  1,000 pesos is about $22.50 right now, so 4,000 pesos make $90.  At 40- per- dollar it would be $100 per 4000 -- an easier number to "convert" - - but the cheaper peso rate for right now is helping out our purchasing power.

"Tired tires?"  One characteristic of the people in this area is

their ability to creatively take "nothing" and make it into

"something."  Here is an example of what worn-out motorcycle

tires can become.

Something as basic as a bamboo window lattice is given

a little "pizzazz" by adding some scrap pieces creatively

mitre-cut at each cross joint.

Another "creative lattice" example.

We have recently been watching the construction of a huge

bamboo structure about 6 miles (10 km. - ha!) up the road

from our place.The person standing in front gives an idea  

of its size.  The rumor is that it will be a guest house. Local

folks can't quite understand it - bamboo on this scale is

expensive to do, and because of termites and rot it will

not last for very long.

Well, it has taken me about a week to put this together so far.  I think it's about time to go ahead and publish it.  One technical difficulty I'm facing right now is the lack of a camera.  My pocket Sanyo finally wore out after more than 4 years of hard use, and the Samsung mini- video camera which Bernadette let me borrow for a while blew its non-replaceable battery.  I have "made do" a little bit with the cel phone but I'm looking forward to the arrival of a replacement Sanyo in a few weeks.  There are no major vendors like Wal

Mart and Target in our area;  and 45 miles away at San Jose, the most-likely camera store had nothing in stock with the features of the Sanyo, although they DID have a fair selection of OTHER name-brand electronic pocket cameras.  (DO NOT take for granted the widespread availability of goods whenever you want or need them!!!)

I'll close with a word about Thanksgiving.  It's hard for Americans to understand how blessed  we have been to grow up in a prosperous, generous, honest country such as the United States was.  I'm glad that some of our forbears saw fit to establish such a day as Thanksgiving Day in simple gratitude for the "good and perfect gifts, which come from above."  And yes, we will celebrate Thanksgiving Day here with some traditional American cookery, and reflect on the bounties and blessings we have experienced in these past two years.

Wishing you each and all a blessed day!

Tim and Bernadette Larson, Philippines