Wednesday, August 23, 2006

August, late 2006, The mill is getting close to being finished at the farm

082306, The Mill Progresses fairly fast at this stage...
MillProgress082306.jpg

083006, The Mill Progresses...The rain is unrelenting...
DeckGoingOn083006.jpg


Later when the floor is down, it is treated to help preserve it.
TreatDeck083106.jpg

Thursday, August 10, 2006

August 2006, Work on the coffee mill continues and we get more weed whacking equipment

081006, We get a second Shindawa Trimmer (the real thing!) from Farm and Home

WeGetRealTrimmers081006.jpg

We also had picked up a truckload of wood for mill construction...
WeBringWoodForMill081006.jpg

081406, Christine and Ken Sheppard work diligently on the mill, even when it rains which it did a lot...
KenAndChristineMill081406.jpg

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

August 2006, Our Sun drying deck to sun-dry the coffee beans is about ready as coffee picking season comes close

August 2006_Drying Deck is built and just about ready for service

Here is the very start of where the main structure of the mill will sit...
StartofMill080206.jpg

Sunday, July 2, 2006

July 2006 is a busy time as we get inside features worked on all over the home!

July 2006_House renovations are almost to the point we can actually get to move fully in.

Here the spiral staircase is getting it’s turn -- this is one of the last things to get painted..
070706, The spiral staircase turned out to be much harder to do than anticipated, it had to be stripped first.
PaintingSpiral060706.jpg

070206, The washer and dryer are finally moved all the way to the garage to make way for the utility room to be more versatile.
At the same time a utility wash sink is added.WasherDryerMovedUtilitySinkInstalled070206.jpg

Window Coverings Arrive 070806
WindowCoveringsArrive070806.jpg

Monday, June 26, 2006

June 26, 2006, More Trash Duty and a 1st look at "the cottage"

062606, And we continue to clean truck loads of junk -- where in the world was it hidden?!

Eventually this cottage will be leveled, put on a good foundation, and painted..
CleaningUpCottageCrap062606.jpg

Friday, June 23, 2006

June 23, 2006, We try a big DR Trimmer on our weeds!

062306, Our DR Trimmer arrives...

DRTrimmerArrives060907.jpg

062306, We put the trimmer into service fairly fast, but unfortunately it does not like lava rocks!
DRTrimmerInAction062306.jpg

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

June 21, 2006, Solar Hot Water System Gets Replaced

062106, When we checked into repairing the old solar hot water it became more practical to replace it. We put in an oversized system but you have to remember we are up at the rain forest and we have naturally cloudy afternoons and often it rains.

We did good: we can go for two days without sun and still have hot water unless everyone washes clothes!
NewSolar062106.jpg

Surprise! When the hot water system is finished and we go to turn on the water, the main valve fails -- no water for us this night!
MainWaterValveFails062106.jpg

Monday, June 19, 2006

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

June 2006, Painting inside the farmhouse continues and some new solar water is in the works as well

June 2006_Painting is in progress...Ken Sheppard starts doing some work...New Solar Hot Water...Washer and Dryer being moved to garage...

060706, This is one of the first days Ken Sheppard was around the farm, here I think he is building a base for the solar water heater to sit on;
Ken is the same who lectured at the Small Equipment Seminar back in October of 2005. He continued to help outside where he would build the coffee mill and with that get us started in the right direction.

KenSheppardStarts060706.jpg