Working holidays

During the season holidays, we had visitors: Kees had arrived mid December and Theo and Truus, Loes’ parents arrived just after Xmas. By now they all are back in Angola and the Netherlands. This blog was supposed to have been posted much earlier but then there is always work.

The visitors could not really sit still. Kees jumped excitingly onto his dam to see how he could repair it. After a heavy rainy day, with 140 mm, the little stream had found a way underneath the gabions and the water in the dam was therefore running away. He carried stones and stones again and now, some weeks after this operation and well into the dry season there is still water in the dam.

Kees is still a sweet bird fanatic and he had come up with the idea for Theo to make nest boxes for birds. He had found a lot of models on the internet but somehow these were forgotten in Angola so we redesigned. It was warm but we could easily provide a workbench in the shadow of a cashew or ficus tree and after having sharpened the saws, Theo could start. Plenty of wood and bark and other materials. One time he was stopped by a butterfly that needed to drink from his hand...

So then we had 9 nest boxes in different sizes...

And they had to get up in the tree... preferably higher than 6 meters.

Our ladder is not as high as that, but we have Justino. He is an excellent tree climber.

He took a rope, threw it over the first branch at around 4 metres, and up he climbed with his bare feet against the trunk. From up there, he went to the next branch by just climbing. At the right spot, supervised by Kees down below on the ground, Justino threw the rope again over a branch and lowered its end. Kees attached the rope to the nestbox’ wires at the back and gave the go sign. Up went the nestbox and Justino fastened it to the treetrunk with the wires. I only took photos.

These and more can be seen on:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism

Truus also did not want to sit still. She finished the bagging of grass seeds (jaragua gras) which we had harvested because we have way too much of it. The transport bags were too tightly packed and needed repacking so that the drying process could continue. She only complained about the hard chairs...

Nevertheless, after this seedy job, she mixed dirt (black soil, clay, sand) and filled loads of plant bags in which we planted many tree seeds that we had previously harvested in Cerro Hoya. Again sitting in a hard chair...

So Loes bought foam in Mariato, 4 big squares and since Theo knows all about upholstery, he was able to get 8 chair cushions out of that. Four for in the wooden chairs at the relax-kitchen-rancho and another four for the hard chairs in the workshop.

Meanwhile other people were also working and well on the 3rd rancho. A big one. Theo visited the site by horseback! The timber for the wooden floor came in January but needed a bit of drying and than it needed to be planed and sanded....

Some may remember that Kees and Loes spent previously quite some time plaining planks... by hand. We did remember and did not look forward to do that again so we bought a machine to help us (Justino) to plane the wood... In the first week of February the floor is going to be put in place and we can re-advertise that people can come and stay at our place.

And for those that are always wondering how the progress is with the big building and the permits... ANAM told us finally on the 17th of December that we needed to do an archaeological study and provide more details as to the location of the drain of the septic tank system... The archaeologist came on the 3rd of January and declared soon after that our soil is culturally sterile because she is to acid. Good, no objections to digging and building. But of course it is not his decision. ANAM had to send his report to INAC (the institute for Cultural Affairs or something like that) and I delivered the other maps and text to ANAM on the 21st, in duplicate with two CDs as well. You can never have enough copies. They told me I could phone to ask for the answer after two weeks... that is next week! So we keep fingers crossed.