Youth group

Carrie, Elena, and Andrea really enjoy attending our church's youth group on Saturdays.

Driveway

We are very thankful for our driveway.  Without this driveway, our property was one of thousands of pieces of property here that are "adentro" or "inside," meaning they are only accessible on foot.  We bought the driveway in three pieces.  First, we bought a two-meter-wide strip from one neighbor, then a bordering one-and-a-half-meter strip from the other neighbor, to connect into the lower corner of our property.  

In the photo below, you can see the community path that was on the section of land that we bought for a driveway.  Since we bought the land this path is on, we have to allow people to walk up our driveway.  We also had to leave enough room on our property outside our fence to allow for the path to continue past it.

This photo is taken from our land, looking
downhill toward the street, where our car
(white) is just entering.

Because of continuing discussions with one of our neighbors (whose house you can see in the photos) debating the exact location of the edge of our driveway, we added a row of blocks along his side, to define the border well and eliminate border disputes in the future.  We were glad that he finally seemed happy with the results.

Looking up the driveway from the road.

 The driveway was finished with gravel.

We had plenty of width, but we were were having trouble turning into the driveway, since it is a bit more than a right angle and the main road is very narrow.  So we bought an extra triangle at the entrance from our neighbor and moved the boundary blocks over.  Now we can come and go easily!

Raising electric line

Early on in the construction process, our neighbor asked us to pay to raise his electric line so trucks wouldn't bump into it on their way into our driveway, since it drapes over our entrance.  The cable had previously run to the top ridge of the roof in the photo below, which now shows the newly raised line.

Chicken joke

Heather's joke:
Why did I watch a chicken cross the road?

Answer:
I was in Chulumal II.

Ha ha.  :)
(Sorry... but this joke did make my family all burst into laughter!)

Turkeys, chickens, and hogs

Some of our new neighbors are turkeys, chickens, and hogs. 

A turkey viewing the ministry building site.

A chicken coming to "visit" Veronica.

Verifying the water pipe location.

Checking out the cistern.

And hogs (one inside the pen and two to 
the right of it) squealing to announce their
presence just outside our lower boundary.

Veronica reading

Veronica has joined the ranks of homeschoolers by learning how to read this year with Michael.

Boundary markers

On the title to our land, the layout is described as going from this rock to that rock, then turning the corner to the next rock, and so forth.  The lawyer suggested we follow the more recent practice of inserting 3-inch diameter pipes about a meter long into the corner, filling them with concrete and a piece of rebar in the center.  We decided to leave some of the bigger, more long-standing rocks in place, since the neighbors are happy with their location.  But we replaced other rocks that have been more recently placed or were problematic.

Heather is trying to find a boundary stone
after a machine came by to level the dirt
road.  This boundary stone in our entryway
was always getting pushed aside by trucks,
so we replaced it first. 

Diego and Yano are putting in a new
concrete boundary tube on the last
piece of land we purchased.
(Check out what huge load is being
carried down the street!)

Here is a closer view.