The men and I hauled sand they collected from the river’s sand deposits today. The river gives and the river takes away. It has claimed acres of our land and gives us clean sand and river beaches. I drove the Rhino with full 5 gallon buckets of river sand that the men collected, shoveled and hauled up the steep banks on their shoulder. Off we go, one man and me, over a seep in 4 wheel drive, then up a hill and over to the shop’s construction concrete floor pour project. They have two days in it and it is not finished. This is hard manual labor, and everything is mixed by hand and shovel. They also had to cut out some old concrete to achieve their goal. We have a concrete saw, so that was still hard but it got done.

Phil worked on our house today, he is working in the bathroom this evening using his headlamp for lighting. We now have running cold water in the bathroom sink. Yahoo. Maybe the drain will be hooked up any minute.

I took a mid-day shower with nice hot water from our solar hose collector. It felt so good and I had plenty. I am always conservative with the water and turn it off while I lather, then back on to rinse. This is how sailors shower and it is my habit. Water was expensive in the middle of the ocean and fresh water was hard to come by. Now we have abundant water, but limited hot water at this time.

I washed some laundry by hand again today and hung it out. Phil gave me a stiff bush and it really works well on his very dirty jeans. Our life revolves around dirt. I don’t have a clothes line yet so I hang them on the chain link fence. It helps to keep up with the dirty clothing everyday, it is not so over whelming this way.

I made BBQ beef ribs using my pressure cooker this afternoon. I use it most everyday. Just 35 minutes to melt in your mouth meat complete with sauce. String beans in a very garlicky parmesan butter sauce and garlic bread made a meal. Gourmet camping is what Phil calls it. I have never been good at making a meal for 2, there are always leftovers. I am really trying not to have leftovers because we do not have refrigeration. I will make another ice run tomorrow.

The other menu item we eat most everyday is BLT’s, Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato on a giant loaf of French like bread. I pile the lettuce and fresh tomatoes on the crisp bacon and it is really good.

Today was a beautiful day, breezy, fresh, clean air, and not too hot. Phil went to La Suiza where he said it was stifling, repressive hot. He is glad that I said I did not want to be hot for the rest of my life. He did not know a few years ago that he did not want to be hot forever. I was sure that sweat was not meant for me. It is crazy to live where you either suffer, or have a giant energy bill every month.

Okay, I don’t have a lot of electric, but I don’t need much. I do need more than I have at the moment. I need the washing machine hooked up. Not a big power user, but the refrigerator uses a lot on start up. We can charge batteries, no problem. The battery drills, lap top, cameras, cell phone, flashlights, it’s a beautiful thing. Energy efficient light bulbs, the ugly ones, are beautiful, we have lights even with little power. We have not hooked the power up to the house yet, I guess we are not ready.

Phil did buy the lumber for my towel closet today. Oh Boy! This will be beautiful. It will probably be a few weeks, we must always dry the wood, they don’t seem to know how here. We are doing all of this building in the house. Behind the sofa…. lumber is stored, my sewing room…..more lumber, the sitting room….. workshop table with tools, the guest room…boxes of stuff waiting for a place to live. It’s all good, I don’t mind living at the construction site.

This process, although challenging, is also allowing our creativity to flow. I don’t know how people build without owning tools, fasteners, generators, man stuff, and rely on a builder in CR. Good thing we figured this out in advance. Forget bringing furniture, fill your container with tools.