another round of construction

We’ve now lived in our house for over a year, it doesn’t really seem that long to me.  One of the things that kind of bugs me is I’ve never gotten to a place where I think, OK, this is about complete.  I really do want to have an open house for friends here in Mérida but I’ve never felt it was ready yet.  I decided I had to pick something and say ‘enough for now’.   We already have a fine coat of salitre on the walls so they look old and like they haven’t been painted in 100 years.  Some things, like these salt deposits that appear through paint, sealer and concrete, I’ve decided to get Microsoft about – it’s not a bug, it’s a feature!  I decided that people spend millions on old Italian villas with the same stuff on the walls, so I don’t let it bother me.

Before

The garden though, that had to get fixed.  It was beautiful with the stone and I think it would have been perfect for someone else, perhaps a snowbird or someone without pets or a yen to plant things.   For us though, it really did not work.  We have 3 fair sized dogs and they have a steady output of poop.  We pick it up but getting it off uneven rock is not easy.  Think of an English muffin with all those nooks and crannies.  After your best attempt with the bag, you have to hose off the residue and the only place it goes is into the sand the rocks are seated on or down the drain into the dry well.  The smell was a bit rank in spots.

Henry explaining what we want to the head albañil

Plus, I’m a gardener.  Not always a good one as my previous green thumb seems to have turned brown on the edges down here but I’m an enthusiastic one.  There was very little space for anything to be planted in the ground and pots had to be very large – don’t ask how Hombre has killed several of my plants in lower pots – but they also didn’t sit well on the uneven stone.   Lounge chairs or tables were out of the question too, unless you wanted to wobble around on them.  Mimi and I have both turned our ankles walking out there and the number of times I’ve almost fallen out of my chanclas is high.   As these things piled up, we really started to hate those rocks.  Mimi even got out there and dug up about a dozen of them to allow a place for the (ahem) run off from hosing them down.  Then she had to go out and turn the sand over every week or so or the smell killed us.

designing a planter

So, yesterday was day 1 of the big yard update.  Henry had done some drawings and we’d decided that it was simple enough we could just line out where things went and keep it simple.  I thought it great when they showed up with lots of pieces of curved plastic pipe in different lengths.  Using those to make lines with cal, the shapes were smoothly curved and organic, you could bend the pipe wider or narrower as you wanted.   If you made a mistake, a broom was the eraser.

it begins

The workers cleared all the terrace plants and furniture so there was a straight shot from the front door to the work area for block and cement. Then they started prying up the rocks, the smell when some of them came up wasn’t good. One of the things I was careful to include in the design was a border of plantings that could collect run off. Plants will help to prevent that smell from happening, the bacteria on their roots convert urea to useful and clean smelling dirt.

We are using brushed concrete for the paths and an area for the BBQ and for a lounge chair and table. The rocks are being used to build various height planters in several places, some of them will also serve as seating. Always though, there is at least a strip wide enough for plants between the concrete and the plantar wall.

the end of day 1

So, day 1 ended with a neat pile of rocks and rebar stakes to mark where the chalk lines had been. This morning the truck came with block and sacks of cement. The neat stack of rock started coming back down as walls were made for the planter beds.

rock walls go up

Our dogs don’t like most workmen, perhaps it is that they sense fear or it could be that we purposely don’t introduce them. So, they are locked up all day while this is going on. They spend the day on the roof and in the bedroom or in the living room and office. Everyone gets really quiet when we bring Cuba the doberman up or down on her leash, she usually makes a show of it barking and growling. The cats stay locked up too, because we don’t want them scared and now also because we have to keep Tita locked up all the time.

The story on that is that last week Mimi saw her run straight up the rock wall to the top. She couldn’t believe it but she did it. Then, she took off to explore the rooftops and stray cats of the neighborhood. We can’t take the fear of something happening to her so once we got her back inside (bless Whiskas) she’s only been out on her harness and leash. Henry has an idea to put a meter high bamboo wall braced with metal on top of our wall and offset it inside the wall so she can’t escape. That has now become part of this garden project. If we can’t keep the brat inside a 16′ wall then I don’t know what we’ll do, try and live with it I guess.

So, that’s the update. I’m waiting now for the plumber/electrician to come by and show us where to put some pvc for future irrigation and cables for lights in the new planters. Here’s the same angle at the end of day 2.

end of day 2