Garage Slab Poured!

Friday morning they poured the slab for the garage. We weren't there- Ra'am had a vacation from school and we all slept late and were very lazy.

Here it is on Saturday- staying wet so it dries well
Jeff is cutting lines in the slab so it doesn't crack.

The pool!

The house..... getting ready for this to be poured next friday. These guys are working on tying rebar. It's a really really hard job- leaning over ALL day long. Anyone who's done this deserves a medal.

Quick Update

Quick tour of the progress:

First off, I am having great success with propagating Bambusa Vulgaris Vittata. Here is one sprouting new growth.



The pool is coming along.


The foundation too. Notice the area for the koi pond and the overflow drain. Hopefully it is big enough. I expressed my reservations to Gene, but he assured me that it could drain the pond in seconds.


Lots more to do!

Culvert Close Inspection

This is our other driveway that opens to the scenic route.



Our friend Terin who is an excellent civil engineer has been giving up pointers on how to fix our culvert - our beautiful, over 100 years old, culvert.

So I climbed down into it today. It is about 4 feet by 4 feet.



All of the damage is on the east side, where some of the wall of the culvert collapsed when a front loader was driving across the top.



Initally we thought that the ceiling of the culvert had collapsed, but there is no damage to the ceiling at all.


What it looks like is that the wall was undercut by the stream and collapsed into the empty space below the wall and then fell upon itself.

It looks like the undercut continues here. I have a feeling the solution is going to be complicated.

Today was a veritable zoo at the land

After doing some early am shopping in town, Luka , Noam and I decided to stop by the land and see GB there as well as check out what was going on.

It was BUSY!
The pool guys were there. There were some decisions to be made, of course. One guy was hand digging the hot tub.

Loren was up at the shed site, framing for the foundation. Gene told me they're going to pour that next friday.

At the house site was major activity. Plumbers were there making way for water lines. I got to meet Jeff, the foreman, and there was some heavy machinery digging holes for the sonotubes.

You can see Loren here on the right corner of the pic, carrying a 2x4 up to the shed.





And amid all of the work..... the plants keep growing and the weeds keep flowering
:)

The earth is moving

It's a little dark, but you can see the long ditch here on the left.

Shed foundation framing

Macro of the dirt on GB's arm. I'm pretty sure he was using the chansaw. It looks all caked on and THICK! (yuck!)
The fruit of GB's labor..... the space widens and the view improves

Two days later

And everything looks different!


This is but one teeny tiny section of the ditch that the water and electrical lines will run through. (actually not sure if elec is going in there too.....). Goes all the way from the water tank to the house.Excavation on the house pad for foottings.
That's Gene and Loren standing there on the left, overseeing.

Woo hoo!

Moving forward and earthworks

So far each day there's been some major changes at the land. After a weekend in South Kohala with Mike, we came home to see what had been done. Even though we were pooped, we were so excited to see what was new!


Looking up towards the water tank, you can see the beginnings of the pad for the shed.

This is a close up of that shed pad
Looking down on the future house. Looks like the slab will take up the whole area.
Markings on the house area to show where the footings will go!

Unrelated to the house.... our lovely bamboo that we always write about has gone to seed. We're not sure exactly what this means (many conflicting reports). This is a flash pic of how the seeds look, and then some close ups. They are very pretty....

GB looks happy :)Luka too

Pond design

So, yall probably know by now our crazy house will be flying above a koi pond. Well, I, with my OCD, did the pond design yesterday.



It's actually only 18" deep. The deep end will have an area for waterlilies and the planters will have orchids, batplants and some small potted palms. I think Karen has some pictures of the batplants I am raising on her flickr pages.

Progress!

Two days ago I went to the land to talk with Gene and do the final siting of the home and garage. Today I went back and there was some major progress!

First I looked down from where we will have out guest house some day.



I could see Gene talking with someone from the driveway.



As I get closer I realize it is Saul! Small Big Island!



Gene is really focused and it shows by how fast things are beginning to move here!



Here is a shot from the end of the pool, looking mauka towards the house pad.



IMHO, Saul is one of the best dozer operators on this island and we have worked with quite a few of them!



Here is the garage pad. It has to be high so that we can get the water off the roof into our catchment tank.

We're gonna build!!!!!!

After quite a few snafus, and general issues.... I'm thrilled to write that we signed the contract with our awesome contractor, Gene. Gene's been incredibly patient and helpful and we're psyched to be working with him.

Work will start with the shed. The house comes next.
Gene estimates it'll be about 1 year.

YAY!

More green...less green

I thought it would be good to have a record of the property from top to house and from house to bottom. It will change a lot over the next year! So today I shot the former.

Below is the road from the highway to the old railroad track. Notice the fine mowing job the Massey did!


This is going along the old railroad.


This is the right turn from theold railroad onto our property.


Looking down from the top of the property. On the left we will be planting our first fruit tree orchard!


On the left are mango trees on the right are java plum.


I think I might be building a retaining wall on the right. Too steep to mow!


The B.hirosi on the left had a low success rate (the B.vugaris.vittalis had almost 100% success!), but hey free is free!


Our mango grove. The view is even wider now. I spent a few hours taking out more of the hau on the right after this photo was taken.


Taken from the biggest mango tree. You can see our empty house site. Might be the last time it is totally empty!


Here you can see on the right our now wider ocean view. I finally got the hau to collapse. The stuff hangs in the air like nothing else.

fascinated with fire

fascinated with fire
Originally uploaded by malama2006.