Stray dogs

Two dogs, next to the rotonda of restaurant La Brasa. Not a great place for a dog.

Although there is food.

Still not a great place for a dog.

The white one was easily caught.

And was freed of ca 20 ticks.

But freed herself, through the terrace gate.

/AND the outside gate. And is now back at La Brasa, with her brown companion, at the restaurant.

The other was not caught.

Fire

Yes, that is the fire brigade passing by.

Digging Endesa

Endesa is the electricity company here. They have a transformer building behind our house, that they share with the other electra company Pastor. They don't like each other. The transformer will be replaced by a new one on a post at the beck of our land, while the old transformer building will be ours. Big advantage for us that the conduits that now run over our roof for supply of our neighbours will be removed. Our supply is now underground. The one for the neighbours will be underground as well. Two huge pipes for 8 houses.

And of course irrigation water pipes were damaged, and repaired.

Nice of them to dig a big planting hole for the paulownia for us.

old photo)

Paulownia hole

Swimming season - April 5th - 21º

April 5: the swimming season has started! 21º! Although not everyone is equally brave. (The "non brave" has swum one go without a suit.)

Irrigation irritation 2

Bigger pump with automatic switch, when water is needed. It's a "booster" pump, for some extra pressure. 25 liter / minute. Still not a great result. You cannot have all taps open. Perhaps it needs a bigger supply hose, as you can see the current one flatten..

Irrigation irritation

There is an irrigation network in our orchard, but someone is eating the tubes.

So this needs some work.


Shallow trenches with a hoe.


Someone is studying where the tubes are laid.


Yes, you.


Water!


The reservoir is above terrace level, and when full also above orchard level, so water flows automatically. But, when half full water flow becomes slow. Or nonexistent. We need a small pump.


An old external-disk 12V supply (4A!), and two hoses. A valve in between when the reservoir is full and the pump is not needed.


And see there's water with the furthest away trees.


It's not a complete success, as it does not work with all irrigation strings at the same time. There are 6 strings with 2-5 trees. One at a time works fine. So that's the way it is, or we buy a stronger pump. This one still is usable for a Manneken Pis, or something equally tasteful.

The writing on the wall

An extraction hood was bordered, but the plaster on the wall is a bit loose, is dirty, ugly, etc. And, loose plaster is a highway for termites and other unholy creatures, and we don't want those. Our builder, empresa Simon, is a bit busy at the moment,
so I'm doing some work in advance, as you can see. Quite an improvement, no?

Much plaster is easily removed with just a spatula. That is because modern plaster was applied onto a lime mortar wall. And that does not stick well. After 20 years or so the plaster will come off. But, especially at the top of the wall there are ares of modern cement, where the modern plaster sticks extremely well. And that's too tough a job. I quit.

After a plaster removal session you have a lot of mess and dust. That is easily cleaned up, it's dry, but it's a hassle. This job is more than a week for one engineer Jansen with a spatula, so more than seven times a mess to clean up, while it's just a day for three empresas Simon with electrical chisels. And a cleanup only once.

Another reason the plaster separates from the wall is that the walls are relatively humid. They were made of lime mortar, and attract humidity from the soil and cellar. Modern plaster is completely sealing, especially if you put "plastico" wallpaint on top. Quite wrong. Under the plaster the wall indeed feels damp-ish. Not a big problem, the doors and windows are always open in a Spanish house, so ventilation is okay. But the paint must go.

Quite interestingly, the old walllpaint becomes visible. They quite liked light blue, apparently. This color was used in the past, and is called "azulete". Even more interesting is that the walls are scribbled full of text. Well, more figures with a word here and there. I suspect they did bookkeeping on the walls, as I think I see the word "kilo" here and there, and a "Pepe". It could be they handed in sacks of wheat to be milled, and part was kept as payment. (see below)

I'd like to show you another example of "Ansteystyle" renovation: the terminal block of this switch was simply plastered in, outside the switch. And some cable ends here. Well, of course.

Ansteystyle renovation.

Termite detection

A house on the Spanish campo needs protection against termites, as they are abundant here. 12 detectors were bought. Those are plastic containers with a piece of wood, and a baiting substance. The containers are placed in the ground around your house. Where there are termites they will find the detector, eat the wood and bait, so you know: ah, termites. You then replace the bait with poison, and get rid of them. Termites are very useful, but not in your house.

In the upper part the container with bait, at the bottom wood. Needs checking every 3 months..

The starling, the roof tile and the bottle

Today engineer Jansen risked his life (again) on a wobbly ladder. There is a roof tile that missed the blob of cement on the outside, and a smart starling noticed that, and thinks: nice habitat! It is right, but it's already mince. And I don't want any vandal starlings with a nesting urge. That only gives us grit in the house. These roofs are not more than a layer of gypsum/clay on reeds under roof tiles. At the arrow an old 2-liter cola bottle was inserted up it's front door. Soon the roof will be maintained a bit, and the opening closed with cement again.

Servicos higienicos lavabo

Today one of the oldest peeves in this house was finally resolved: installation of a small hand wash basin in the loo on the first floor. In Spain all you can get are huge wash basins. Probably due to the water shortage. Anyway, when you sat on the loo the wash basin was pushing in your side. We gave up locally and ordered a small one via the interwebs with Amazon. Installed this week. Not in one go, as the sizes of all connections differ from the old basin and taps. Various car rides later we now have a spare siphon, and some connection hoses.

Oh, and some silicone. All over me, of course.

Hm, where do we put the soap?