Cement trucks - aaagh!

Been meaning to write this week but things don't always go to plan.  When I last wrote,  we'd had a deluge and spent the day repairing and tidying the road amongst other things.  Then of course another deluge came down on Friday afternoon,  only 1 clap of thunder and 1 flash of lightning,   the  re-dug pool gulley held up so no more dirty water washing into the hippo pond,  the road humps also kept back a lot of the rain,  we watched from the side terrace as it poured down the road like a river. 

More that usual rushed down the road partly because the gulley/hump further up has flattened out,  and silted up,  I did mention that we had been discussing with our nearest neighbours what others were doing,  one of the many Paco's is having a water deposit built,  on ground,  out of concrete,  about 9 metres by 4 or even 5 wide, about 3 or so high.  Quite an undertaking,  and a lot of very heavy lorries and concrete mixers up what is really a single track road.

The first mixer came last Monday afternoon,  followed on Tuesday by at least 3 more, maybe 4.  Then a large lorry laden with metal shuttering for the framework.  We have a curved road passing our house,  all our water pipes - drinking water and acequias and garden watering - run under ground from our land opposite and beneath the road.  Never a problem but with each successive mixer,  they cut the corner and drove further and further into the banking.   There was a real danger of pipes being exposed and crushed if we weren't careful,  so we made a temporary 'watch-out' wall of bloques where they had been driving.  Not out into the road, but just on the curve they'd created.  We filled them with soil for a bit of stability and I even put some geranium cuttings in the end ones, then John also painted the ends white to show in the dark.  What more could we do?  We cut off the lowest palm branches which were touching their lorries,  we made sure the grass at the side of the road was cut down so they could gauge the width easily.....

Paco didn't think much of it, he stopped the next morning and with lots of arm waving said we couldn't do that blah blah blah..... of course we can it's our land.  The mixers will have to take more care,  they weren't any where near the other side, had plenty of room.  And so to yesterday.  First up a pump lorry used to pump the concrete into the mold.  Out we went with the camera in case of problems,  up he went nice and slow,  watching in his mirrors.  All ok.  Then the mixers,  5 of them in all during the day,  2 different drivers,  one careful and one 'cigarette in mouth / arm out the window'  driver,  who just shrugged when first he caught the bloques with his wheel,  next trip he ran over them,  eventually we were just left a crushed pile of stone.  Annoying I know,  but at least it kept them from going any further into the banking.  The shuttering lorry has been up twice today collecting all the metal work, acro's etc,  he has even missed the crushed remnants.  And said goodbye  this afternoon when he went down.  Photos on request,  John said he's going to make it into a video of  'how not to drive a cement truck'.

In between trucks and photos, we have been doing the usual stuff,  John is Chief of Seed Germination now,  amongst other things, he has lots of coriander plants and parsley, and also 34 runner beans germinated and ready for planting out for the autumn crop,  I've dug over the beds and got the canes and framework ready and this morning put them out.  24 Kentucky Wonder Wax,  a long cream coloured bean,  and 10 that we don't know the name of.  A very long flat bean which has a bright red pod,  came from one of the other Paco's last year. Also got 3 pea beds  and their frame work ready,  usually put the first peas in at the end of September.  Plus next will be the first sowing of broad beans but as yet they have nowhere to go.  The strawberry runners which I put in yoghurt pots to root have grown out the bottom into the ground,  so they are being transplanted as I find a space.

Next up,  more wine.  Probably starting to pick grapes as from Monday week which gives us the rest of this week to sort out the peas, broad beans and to clean the hippo pond.