Best Posts in Thread: House Build

Digos...sorry for the late reply. Still trying to figure out total costs, the wife is great at keeping receipts, not so great at keeping them organized. I have found most of the receipts for the steel for the partitions and gates, that was just over 30K pesos. I also had an electric bill of 7K and 4K due to welding. I will get everything organized and put on a spread sheet. With the back fill, you need to realize I brought things up over a meter higher than the surrounding area so it was quite a bit of dirt. Still working on landscaping so continue to tallying costs.

Just an update, the puppies are just over 5 weeks old. They are really getting fun now with wanting to play and just spend time being held and petted. All nine are between 4 and 5 lbs and are eating machines; I think I spend more on puppy food than food for a family of four. I am still surprised they are still black with just white on the chest (the jokes can come), they have gotten spots on their chests and the ones with white paws as well. I really thought the Belgian blood would have dictated things more but I do see more Dalmatian in them. I've never seen this cross before so it is curious, no matter what they are cute as can be and fun. They mostly stay at the Nipa (it is cooler in there) and do fairly well on getting out to take care of their business, still need to concentrate on getting them house trained. Even though I injected both our dogs for worms before the pups were born they did have worms so we were able to do an oral medicine for them...pretty nasty but seems to have worked and they are more active.

The garden is doing OK. We've picked sweet corn a few times as well a squash. We are getting Okra and peppers pretty much daily as well as some Daikon radish. I have a bunch of green tomatoes, the only one that ripened on the vine looks like someone took a bite out of it, half was gone. Cauliflower also has some critters after it. I've been out during the day as well as at night with a flashlight and have yet to find what is causing the damage. There is a local remedy using a vine (can't remember the name right now) that is boiled and the water used in a spray bottle...we tried it once already but time for another dose.

Shawn

 

Not too much work going on, fixing some things. Wanted to post a few pics as we are heading to Dumaguete this morning to pick up some more materials and have lunch.

Shawn

 

7 pups so far and she has at least 2 more to go (from me feeling her belly...as if that means anything). She started hours ago and it has been 1, an hour, 2 and 3 right away, tons of time for the others and am still waiting on the last few. Pretty cool and we are right there with her.

Shawn

 

The past week was really slow, mostly due to rain but also had one laborer quit out of the blue. Really liked the kid so it was a bit of a surprise and am sure there is more to the story, but that is the wife's job to deal with. Good news is we will have an additional 3 guys tomorrow (fingers crossed the weather will be better).

I have some things left in storage in Korea (to include some important paperwork) so I'm flying out on Tuesday but will be back on Friday so there should be very few posts next week as I will be quite busy trying to work a couple things in basically 2 days on the ground.

Shawn

 

Good to hear from another who has ties to Tanjay...I really like this little town. There is another DI member that has a spouse from Tanjay; always up for meeting folks.

Shawn

 

We did not want to handle the puppies too much at first to let Chili bond with them (she is proving to be an attentive mother), but checked them closely today and we have 6 girls and 3 boys. The next couple months are going to be quite busy.

Shawn

 

I've never heard the term "pupgars" so I will assume you mean puppies. We will have to do something later since she had 9 pups. Everything I read said that the first litter would be small so we were expecting 4-6 tops. I guess I will have to wait to find out what they are going to look like; I watched some videos of Belgians and they are born black and then turn to the fawn color over time. They came out black but some have white on the belly or paws. Dalmatians are born white so I am guessing the Belgian genes may be stronger. Either way it will be interesting to see.

Shawn

 

Hi Shawn,

Mainly, Cheap Backfill and Top Soil is dug out of City excavations, you never really know what is in there, Could be illegal tipping debris, Acids, Alkaline and just about anything, Disese and things can be present. The City are not bothered who buys it they just want to be rid of it. We bought ours from our Hard Core and Building Sand Supplier in Bacong and payed them to treat it.

As with many Things, Cheap is not always Good. The Top of a 3/5 Cubic foot wagon looks good but there is a hell of a lot Unseen, in the middle and Bottom. One 3 Cm wagon we got was waste from a glass works mixed with back Fill. Cut the dogs a fair bit. I complained but we know where we are. Dirt is dirt, Stones is stones Glass is glass. Money is money but Right is Right


JP

 

No Sir; still working on the fence partitions and rendering upstairs, want to get that work done first.

Shawn