More of the same.

For the last month I have been seeing lots of hikers and bikers headed south through La Paz from points north, headed to Loja on a pilgrimage to the Virgin of the Swan. They are mostly young adults walking in groups of three or more, stopping in town to change socks, adjust their gear and get something to eat. The main celebration is on September the 8th in Loja, then on the first of November the sculpture of the Virgin Mary will travel back to El Cisne. These folks are walking or biking pretty near 100 miles for this event, I have seen hundreds of these hikers just from my travels back and forth from Cuenca to La Paz. Pretty serious stuff.

The new pup and I went out to La Paz this past week for 4 days and got a little work done.

She is a digger dog.

With the vertical rebar set at 4 foot intervals, I can finally set the the first corner which will set up placement for the rest of the addition.

First corner in. A couple of notes - there are no end blocks here, it will all be stuccoed anyway. The vertical rebar should be placed in the footer or drilled in, minding where the open cells are in the block. Now the string lines can be replaced with those string blocks I made way back when I was putting in the front gate. No need for story poles, the corners will go in first then course blocks to fill in.

With the north corner in I have laid out the south corner and started the excavation, with the help of the digger dog. It's too small for a piece of equipment and almost too big for an old man with a pick and shovel. I sure remember the horses I have broken ( or should I say, that broke me ) after a day of digging.