Earth To Mother Ship

Front entrance of the house.  We will build a dip pool out front here. The water will help cool the house.

Nothing moves quickly when building a house in any country.  This house began in early October. The house is only 900 square feet.  If you look closely at  the photo above you can see the workmen are beginning to smooth the walls under and around the windows.

Side view of the house. Ocean to the left.

We have plans to add natural fencing down our lot lines comprised of short palm trees for shade and privacy and cactus for security.  These plants are native to this area and once we are down there living we can spend the time to keep them watered so they will establish.

Other side of the house with side door.  The outdoor bathroom & shower will go on this side.

We have seen plans and actually stayed in a hotel with an outdoor shower that drained into the root bed of the tree which was within the privacy wall of the outdoor bathroom.  We have definite plans to work with a similar model for our second bath.

Standing on the beach in front of our build looking north.

Standing on the beach in front of our build looking south - note the rancho.

I can't wait to wake up with the sun and walk this expansive stretch of beach. Under the bright full moon we will be able to go out on the beach to keep baby turtles safe as they hatch and make their way to the water. This beach holds many great adventures for us. 

Standing in the scrub between the beach and our build.

Casa No Name ... which knocks the socks off Casa Albatross (our last house owned and dumped after the housing crisis in the USA) has yet to be appropriately titled.  I keep calling it Casa Pequeno (small in Spanish) but we are open to suggestions.... that is your cue to leave us a comment with your suggestion!  So far we have 'Sur' endipity, Sur'fin, Surf Dog and are you ready for Big Daddy P's suggestion; Palicimo Seximo.  Oh dear gawd. 

Front veranda and main entrance to the house.

Side lot. Big Daddy P, Fin and our friend Paul.

Standing inside the house looking at the bedrooms.

These guys are using a water level.

Big Daddy P holding clay roof tiles to be laid over a zinc roof.

The lots are grouped into 10 lots each with a communal area with a rancho shared between the houses. This photo is taken from the rancho adjacent to our lot.  You can see in the photo below our friend Paul's white circular house named Apres Surf.  It's going to be a three story three bedroom three bath house with spectacular views from the top deck.  The fishermen already use Paul's house as a landmark since it is the first house on that stretch of beach.

In the rancho looking at Paul's white house Casa Apres Surf. That is our build in that clump of trees just over wall line of the community building.

Our friends Sasha, Shamus and Big Daddy P chowing down.

Lobster and fish dinner.

Thank you to Rafael & Donovan our developer / builders for hosting such a delicious dinner in the rancho.  We feasted on fresh local caught fish and lobster.  The fishing co-op is in the town of Salinas Grandes which is a short drive from our house. You can bet Big Daddy P and I will become regular faces at that co-op. Steve is very excited to get spear fishing and has replaced all the spear gun's components already.

Finster entertaining us after dinner in the rancho.

A spectacular end to our day. Squeeeeee! This is our front yard!

Finley is absolutely smitten with the puppy.

Fin petting / trying to pick up a pup.

The next day when we returned to the site we were with our friends Sasha and Shamus.  They brought along a big bag of dog food for those puppies and their family.  The dogs wasted no time plowing into the kibble.  I swear when we came back again the following day we could see the puppies had filled out, we could see a few less ribs.  Of course the workmen building the three houses are caring somewhat for the dogs. They do get the odd scrap and we fed  beach dogs some pieces of fish from a delicious dinner put on by our builder. Check the next post for that spread!

We can't wait to get down to Nicaragua and have some beach dogs to love.  It's been a long year here in our house since we lost our dog Cecil last January.  A home is just not complete without a dog to love!

With a string of days in the high 80's I figured it was a perfect time to take the yoga mats from my home studio to the laundry mat so I could wash them up and then hang them out to dry. My students have been working hard on those mats and my dog has also been giving them a work out. He seems to think my mat is for eating his crunchy food over. Like it's perhaps a giant place mat. Then last week just as class was beginning he arrived to class to let me know what he thought of me by taking a dump on my yoga mat. Yeah, real nice. What a total jerk move. So NOT ZEN Cecil!