The guys are making some great progress on the cabin foundation. The concrete stuff is all new to us, so it has been quite the learning experience. Since we can’t actually drive to the cabin site, we opened up the fence in order to be able to drive the truck halfway there. This saved a lot of time, labor and heavy breathing going up and down and up and down with just buckets and a wheelbarrow. Though there was still some of that too.

Driving through the formerly fenced area

They worked a few days on the rebar for the columns, then they loaded them onto the truck as far as they could go and then carried them to the site.

Bending and cutting rebar for the column skeletons

Then they set and measured them to make sure everything was level again.

Rebar columns

Unloading the truck and taking the sand two buckets at a time

Good thing we have a truck! It was super filled with sand, boards, and concrete

Finally, they had unloaded everything to the flattest part of the quebrada under the canopy and by a pretty mango tree. Here they built a mixing platform and began to hand mix the concrete. Luckily the three hoses reached because we had hooked up water to the turkey coop!

Mixing in the shade

Sounds like the start of a good joke: Four guys and four turkeys make concrete in the jungle…

And then they were able to load up the buckets once again and haul them up the hill to the site where they dumped them into the holes to make the footers.

Zapatones/Footers

We had a huge rainstorm that caused a bit of a delay, but they were able to finish all the footers in one day. Next in line will be the column molds and repeating the hauling and mixing process for them as well.