Arizona

A truck with a forklift delivered five palettes of concrete blocks and two palettes of mortar to the house today. We expect that the masons will show up any time this week to continue working on the courtyard.

We are looking forward to finishing the courtyard and getting gates installed so we can let the dogs out in the daytime.

Image: Sunset over the concrete blocks and mortar. Click image to enlarge.

A crew is scheduled to show up tomorrow to permanently install the internet/TV cable. When we had the cable installed a couple of weeks ago, the technician had to dig a temporary ditch to bury the cable feed to the terminal across the road. Lately, the cable has been exposed in a few places which made us worry that it might be damaged.

Yesterday, we ordered the security doors for the house. Since we have Santa Fe style architecture, we’re going with doors that reflect the style. The figure at the bottom of the door is Kokopeli, a Native American icon seen throughout the southwest. The sunset and the symbol in the center of the door are also Native American style.

Verna and I originally contacted a vendor we found on the internet. We started the process with them but soon realized they weren’t responding to our inquiries about custom colors and styles like they weren’t paying attention or something.

When we made a trip to the Phoenix Metro area for supplies, quite by accident we found another steel screen door vendor in a strip mall. We went in and discovered that not only did they have the exact same doors as the on-line guys, but offered them at less than half the cost we were originally quoted. We arranged for a measurement session with the new guys and called the others to cancel.

Since we’re paying much less for the doors, we decided to get steel doors for the patio and garage door. They should be installed in about four weeks.

Construction on the courtyard wall started this morning. We went to do some shopping down in the Phoenix Metro area and by the time we returned home the trench was nearly complete. The work continued until later in the day and the trench is complete with the rebar installed.

Image – the finished trench looking toward where the front gate will be. Click on the image to enlarge.

We also scored another important milestone for the steel security doors. We had been working with a vendor in the Tucson area but when we were shopping today Verna noticed a storefront for security doors. We went in and talked to the salesman for a while. He gave us a quote which was less than half of what the Tucson vendor quoted us. That should save us enough money that we can afford steel doors for both the front and rear entrances.