Friday, February 02, 2007

Deck And Stair Railing

Deck And Stair Railing
We have been waiting for a few months for our landlords brother/s to have some free time to make some railing for our deck/patio and stairs. Yesterday morning Ciro came up and asked us to move the car as his brother was coming with the railing. They arrived and started working on installing it. It wasn't quite what I was expecting; but it will certainly be safer than it was before. They put some of it in place and then took more measurements and returned to their shop to cut some more pipe. I went to spanish class and when I returned they also had returned and were working at it. They packed up and left around 6 PM, the work isn't finished so I am hoping that they return today to finish; but who knows. I didn't ask Ciro about it, as I know that they will finish it whenever they have time, whether it is today or not. Irene came out to look at it and pronounced it "feo", which if I understood her correctly is "ugly". It is not the pretty ironwork that you see all over, it is simply round pipe that will do the job. She had concrete balustrades in her mind last winter though, so I guess it is not what she wanted. Personally I am just glad to have something there that will make it less scary when the children come up to visit. Ciro was up here and Irene was downstairs, so he commented that it was like Romeo and Juliet; although reversed and I suggested to Irene that she could serenade Ciro. We all laughed when the men were working around where the hummingbird feeder is hanging and the birds were constantly buzzing around their heads. An unusual job hazard.
As I was writing this the men returned and began work, so perhaps they will finish today. We discussed with Ciro yesterday what color we were going to paint the railing. He thought that we should paint it blue to match the colors that I have used on the decorations and cushions on the patio. At the time we thought that was a good idea; but as we thought about it later we kind of changed our minds. The railing goes down the stairs to the ground and as the trim on Ciros house is red, we are thinking that the blue railing might look odd with the red, so we will probably just stick to white that matches the main house color. Whatever, we won't be doing it until we come back from Yuma anyway and then there is Carnaval, so it might have to wait for a couple of weeks to get painted.
My photo uploader was doing weird things last night and I lost a couple of photos that I had taken of the men working. If they come back to work today, I will try and take a few more.
Putting the landing railings in place.


Taking measurements.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Thursday Already

Thursday Already
I'm not sure where the days go; but they sure seem to disappear fast down here. Monday and Tuesday I went to spanish class and also stopped at the campground at San Carlos to see Marilyn and Linda on one of those days. Linda has a book that I wanted to look at before we go to Yuma. I am thinking of buying it there; but wanted to look through it first. It is a self-guided spanish learning book by Marcial Prado, called Practical Spanish Grammer. It seems to be not too bad and if I can find it, will purchase it while we are there.
Tuesday night it clouded up and we had a couple of drops of rain and a rainbow. Yesterday started out sunny; but then turned gloomy and cloudy also. We did get enough rain last night to wet the patio.
The photos below are of the sun on the mountains at sunset Tuesday and the rainbow after the couple of drops of rain.



We are probably heading to San Luis Rio Colorado on Sunday night, by bus, getting there around 8 AM Monday morning (depending on how many check stops there are on the road). Roys sister and husband will pick us up from there and we will spend the week with them in Yuma. The plan is to return here next Friday in time for all the carnaval parades, etc. which start on the 15th of February.
Today is spanish class again and then will spend Friday and Saturday doing laundry and getting ready to leave for Yuma.