Monday

More progress on the foundation. We brought back enough cement from Punta Arenas for the perimeter work, and the interior pads can be done later, when more cement makes its way to Natales.

Having installed the trailer at the work site, I have a bit of a workshop and storage vehicle out there. And it has a fine view.

In Patagonian Concrete

Yesterday the foundation, or "sobrecimientos" forms were completed and the first of the concrete was poured. The builder had not accounted for the additional concrete that would be needed because of some earlier issues and so I was told that they would need 10 additional sacks of portland cement. Claudio and I took the Toyota into Natales to try to find the additional cement. We visited every construction materials store and found that there was no cement to be had in Natales. That meant that in order to continue with the project, that I would have to drive the 300 roundtrip miles to and from Punta Arenas.

Claudio would take advantage of the trip to buy doors for the renovation work on the original Casa 7. Then, as I was getting ready to leave, I asked the builder one more time if there was anything else that we should get on this trip. Ah, yes, there was. Pick up 30 cutoff disks for cutting the steeling framing materials. And some more esparragos. Now, esparragos is the word for asparagus, but in building it means threaded rod that will be used for the anchor bolts, that is, the mudsill anchors. It is not the ideal material for these anchor bolts, but the proper J-bolts I need for the job do not appear to be easily found here, south of the Patagonian Ice Cap.

The threaded rod is sold in a mixture of English and metric sizing. You specify the diameter in inches (in this case, half-inch) and the length in metric (I was told to pick up 6 meters' worth, along with nuts and washers). And how many nuts and washers? Oh, about 20. That results in nearly doubling the original bill of materials number I bought the other day. Since I can count all the places that the materials are being used, they don't seem to be disappearing. This event follows another recent replanning event, in which I had to return to the local lumber yard (dismiss any mental pictures you may have of North American lumber yards) where I had to buy one hundred percent more of the packages of boards that were originally specified. These packages appear to be the same stuff that is used for sheep fencing hereabouts but again, nothing seems to be disappearing except into the growing foundation forms forest.

It was a fine warm and nearly cloudless day yesterday, not unlike a summer day. The view along the Sound was splendid. The drive to Punta Arenas was also pleasant, and we accomplished our materials acquisition with little trouble. I certainly don't feel like a local, but I am getting to feel a little more comfortable at the Sodimac, the closest equivalent locally to a big-box store that vaguely resembles a Home Depot.

When I left for Punta Arenas, there was concrete being mixed and poured. It was good to see this progress. The experience has been painful and expensive. But I had been warned. Just as the building of the Black Forest barn had been a good experience to use for application in the building of Casa 7 Bis, so is this job providing useful knowledge for any subsequent work, including possible additional house building projects. Already Claudio has said that he is interested in buying the place I am now building. But that would probably not be anytime soon.

Today, Sunday, it is raining. There will be no more work at the site in this weather.

Dualsport Ride, Torres del Paine

We had put two of the KLRs outside the store today. And all day I had thought about getting away for a ride. It turned out that I forgot to deliver a roll of wire to the building site, so I used one of the KLRs to do that, so that the foundation work could continue. While at the Bories house I found my old Belstaff jacket and some Goretex pants, and that was good enough. By the new road to the site of the old Puente Negro at the edge of Torres del Paine, it is just a little over 100 miles for a round trip, mostly on gravel road. But the gravel is in good shape and relatively smooth in most places. If you are a WFO KLR rider, you can crank it up to over 70 mph or more. But for most of the ride out, I just enjoyed the scenery. On the trip back it was getting cold, so I wicked it up a bit. I was on Cecil's old KLR, with new Gripsters, and it ran like a rocketship.

Progress and sundry fotos

A trip to Punta Arenas for some building materials. And a look while there at a cruise ship in the harbor, and a dormer as a model for the new place in Bories. A look at the Bories building site, across the foundations and down the Sound. The addition of a dormer is under consideration. It would face the northwest, toward the end of Last Hope Sound and the southern end of the ice field.

It was a decent day today, windy and cool but not bad. I rode the bicycle from Natales to the building site. Alas, I am not in the best of condition for bicycle riding, and some adjustments must be made to the seat. But I hope to make this an occasional means of transport and exercise.

Around here

There was one day when there were three ships in the Natales-Bories ports. Good for local business. Weather has been in a general cooling trend but hardly surprising temps for the end of the austral summer. The rain has converted a bit of the building site to mud but it has been good for recovery from the long dry spell earlier.

Catching up

Ooops. I forgot the fotos of the trip to Punta Arenas last week, to pick up the steel material for the new house foundations. The steel material is called cadena, which literally means chain. The builder specified the minium cross section information and the overall length needed. It is not available here in Puerto Natales, which is one of the reasons that construction work here is so expensive -- everything has to be imported, and the gasoline for a roundtrip to Punta Arenas is over US$100 for my Toyota pickup. But besides the materials I needed a mental health trip to Punta Arenas, and this trip included a bypass section through Río Verde. More scenic than the normal stretch. The bottles in the windows were at the Río Verde estancia. Not far from that was the so-called flag tree, not an uncommon sight in these parts, where the strong winds that come from the north/northwest often cause trees to grow like this. That is, if the wind does not just blow them over altogether.

Foundations

Starting to see some tangible progress on Casa 7 Bis. They build things a bit differently here, including the foundations. And the local dogs pitch in, of course.

I inserted a foto from the trip to Punta Arenas last week, to pick up the steel to be used in the "sobrecimientos" - the part of the concrete foundation that is placed on top of the below-grade initial pour. They say that is the way they do it here.

One of the other fotos shows the steel to be used later in the framing and joists.

Time for an update

There is a certain irony associated with this blogging, in that when there is spare time to write, there is not much to report, while busy days don't leave free moments for updates. That seems to related to the axiom that there are some people who have something to say and can't express it, while others have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

For the sake of my correspondents who wait with bated breath for new pronouncements on this blog, I'll summarize recent events and the fotos.

There is the issue of my residency visa, and what we jokingly call the Green Card. The application for residency had been approved some time before I actually got down here, but that was just part of the process. Once in town, I had to go to foreign office, called the Extranjería. Then to the "International Police" office, for a little investigation and report. It should be noted that the International Police are distinguished from the regular Carabineros, since the former are plainclothes types and seem to carry larger caliber sidearms. And they seem to deal with a set of issues that are related to non-chileans inside the country, like immigration.

In the best of worlds the processing for my visa and carnet would have taken maybe one or two days, but it has been a couple of weeks now. Earlier this week I passed my passport to the foreign office, which was a good sign, since it meant that it would soon have the actual visa sealed to a passport page. But in order to get the ID card, that Green Card equivalent, I would have to go back to the international police office for another approval step, and from there to the Registro Civil which won't be open again until Monday. And as it turned out the international police were engaged with some Bolivians of dubious origin and hippie-type appearance. At least one of them, who was inside the police office, seemed to have quite a collection of animal parts in his bags. This was an issue because those feathers and skins and stuff had crossed into Chile from other countries and this was a violation of rather strict agricultural protection regulations.

But I got the little bit of paper I needed, got my foto taken, did not get any fingerprints taken, and from here I go to the Registro Civil next week.

The attached fotos are local sights: a view of my village from across the bay, a view of the glaciers from down the street from the house site, and a shot of the construction materials that arrived yesterday.

The little office

The little office behind the store on Blanco Encalada in Puerto Natales, where I am camping out for the time. And bringing you this blog. We have all stayed in much nastier places as younger folks, and at least here nobody is shooting at me.

This old house, redux

The work at Lote 9, for Casa 7 and Casa 7 Bis, does look like a bit of a war zone, but things are coming along. I like what I see of the work being done by the new builder. Good selection of materials, and good workmanship. The builder tells me that casa 7 was built about 80 years ago, though I don’t know how he determined that. I am inclined to think it is newer than that.

In the original part of the house there was evidently no insulation in the walls, though I did see sawdust in the spaces above the ceiling. The exposed walls show off the old craftsmanship in carpentry. It makes one wonder about who the builders were, and what the village must have looked like then.

There was a clawfoot bathtub in the original Casa 7, and Claudio says he is not planning to use it in the renovated bathroom, that if I want it for 7 Bis it is available. They are putting in new bathroom fixtures, including a proper modern shower stall. The bathtub is hardly a practical item for the new house but it might have a place in a future downstairs bathroom.

The foundation excavation for 7 Bis is mostly done, along with the utilities trench, and the batter boards are up. But for the time being, the crew is working on the remodeling project in Casa 7. They used steel studs and joists, along with familiar OSB and drywall. The OSB is covered with Tyvek Homewrap, which not too many years ago was unknown down here. The attic has enough headroom and floor space for an additional level, and that is where my stuff is being stored for the time being.

Meanwhile, the value of the US dollar continues to dive, relative to the Chilean peso. And to most other currencies.