Putting up posts. . .

It has been a bit on the dry side to start the rainy season, which is
a good thing, since Miguel and I are putting up additional lightposts around the grounds.

The other day, had the poles all prepped and ready to plant. Then, it's time for cement. I don't know much about mixing cement (and still don't, truth be told) but Miguel does and we were able to knock out the two poles fairly quickly.

We had two wheelbarrows, a trailer (from the ATV) full of sand and two 75-pound bags of cement. The sand was brought up from the river; the rock from around the grounds and the cement from the local hardware store.

Everything gets tossed into a wheelbarrow (sand, cement, rock and then water) and stirred by a shovel until it gets to the right consistency. Then it's shoveled out and into the hole where we're holding the light pole in place. We also tossed in some fist-sized rocks to stabilize everything and after a couple of hours, the posts were in place and the two bags of cement were gone.

We have seen people pouring cement for roads all over Costa Rica and have seen very few cement trucks. Most of it is mixed by hand, in wheelbarrows, and carted to where it needs to be.