Tuesday

Look what Eddie found this morning!  He rescued this guy up by the north satellite building and will release him out into the wild where he belongs.  This is a Sonoran Desert Toad.  He looks harmless, but don't let your dog lick him or they'll be sorry.
 

 
I copied some info from the internet for you.

Maintenance work never ends.  Can you guess which half of this wall hasn't been cleaned yet?  

 

 

Good Grief!  Diane is wearing a jacket!  I had to stop and give her the business but she claims she's wearing it because it was raining when she started out this morning.  Okay.  I'll buy that.  It is in the 70s this morning though and we're definitely not used to such cool temperatures.

 

We've had quite a bit of rain lately.  The Cottonwood crew gets to play in the mud.

 

Notice that our landscape crew has all the trees planted out in the median already.

 

Back at the construction area, they're trying to level out and mark the roads so they can start preparations for the curbs.

 

And, of course, work continues over at the courts.

 

 

 

Here's Jim Dawson conferring with Herman and Paul about post installation.  These gents are with the fencing company and are digging holes for light poles and fencing.

 

It's time we start saying "rain, rain, go away" as the mud and wet conditions are starting to back up the timeline.  These big yellow tubes are prep for where the bulletin boards will go between courts.

 

 

According to the weatherman, this is what a "normal" monsoon season is supposed to be but we haven't seen one like this in quite a few years as we've been in such nasty drought conditions.  The rain is good for our desert but tough on construction timelines.

 

In fact, the unexpected downpour of rain we had last week caused quite a problem with that last quadrant of sunken courts.  The heavy rains we had were not predicted but came anyway dropping too much water on the fresh concrete.  Thus the cement company has to grind down and smooth off 1/4 inch off the top surface on that quadrant.  Then they'll apply a slurry to bring it back up to the proper height before doing the top coats.  Not for us to worry about as the experts will fix the problem.

 

 

Quite a soupy mess out there.

 

And it looks like more rain is headed our way.

 

Monday

Good Morning and a happy Monday to you!  What a beautiful morning it is too.  We did our rounds at a cool 80 degrees with a little fresh breeze.  What an awesome relief from the heat!  Yahoo!!

Today starts the patching and sealing of the streets.  This first picture is of them blowing away the dust and dirt while the second photo shows them prepping the tar? to seal the cracks.  Will get better pictures as work progresses.

The softball field appears to be all leveled and ready to go.  Once the water system is ready, we'll really see some action out there.

Work continues over at the pickleball courts.  Now that all the cement is poured, different projects begin.  You can see them applying the post tension at the wall.  Others are still smoothing down the concrete and getting ready for post installation.

Paul and Herman are in charge of digging the holes for posts.

 Don and I have made friends with many of the crew by now.  Say hi to Herman.

and Paul 

Here's a link to Don's video for today!

Construction Progress

I remember the years that I dreaded a Monday and the start of another work week.  Now I look forward to each week of FUN!

Saturday

Thank you to Avis Gray for sending this photo of our last dust storm.  This one hit us last Sunday.  Because Avis went on a mini vacation to Las Vegas for a few days, she was a little slow in getting this to me.  

 Another precious owl picture.  It's always a delight to see this guy on our morning rounds.  Must have had a rough night as he definitely has a feather out of place.  

It's Saturday, but Fernando is busy at work leveling the areas between the pickleball courts.  That's Jim Dawson by the white truck in the background.  He never seems to take a day off either with all the action going on here.  If we don't see him on rounds in the early morning it's because he was here all night while they poured concrete.   

Don hiked out there to take that picture for me as I'm still nursing a bum leg but I'm waving hello anyway.

All the courts are poured now. 

We were wondering how they would put the post tension on the sunken courts.  Aha....here's the answer.  They left a gap by the back wall so they can get that machine in there. 

There are a lot of posts out there.

Each one has a hole and will be filled manually with concrete once the posts are leveled.  Definitely not a small task. 

Just FYI--On 9/10 the back nine closes for overseeding and is scheduled to reopen on Monday 10/22.  On 10/1 the front 9 is closing for overseeding and is scheduled to reopen Monday 11/12.

Friday

Surprise Surprise!!  We woke up Friday morning to a RAINY day!  That certainly doesn't happen very often around here.

A little rain doesn't keep Arizona folks from a normal work day.   The forecast only called for a 30% chance of rain...........but it rained a long time anyway.  

Because the sump pump isn't installed yet, they had to bail out the sunken courts.

Two more new houses going in at 1329 and 1331.  Exciting news for the new owners!

Ed Brown was out there to supervise!  Hi Ed.

Uh Oh.............time to replace a tread on the bulldozer.  Fernando to the rescue again.

Work continues on street repair and painting buildings.