Tuesday, September 23, 2008

A Ground Breaking Occassion

The several months of waiting was finally over.. first allowing the shrimp farmer tenant to finish off the last harvest. It then overlapped into the raining season and the waiting continued.

As I am building the bird house over the pond, water has to be pumped out and allowed the pond bed to dry for a couple of weeks before the tractor can get in for earth works. That phase was completed too.

My supportive friends came on the day to witness the marking of the foundation piles! They are all bird nest & shrimp farmers. P'Moo & P'Jiap examined my plan for positioning the foundation piles.














Chang Ou, the builder, marked the location of the first pile.














A little more landfill to be performed at one end of a deep pond. P'Moo came up with an ingenious idea to use large 8M long bamboo poles, driven in to form a grid.



















About 50 "bamboo piles" were used.














Then clay mixed with shrubs were used to fill the space in between.














Task completed, this is to withstand the pressure of the piling machine coming to this area.














Moving earth to form a ramp 'drive way' to allow piling machine down & facilitate construction.














Workers set up living quarters on site & fish for diner too!














I am short of words to thank them all for the help rendered. And this is just the beginning!