Construction

The road construction is complete! Two sections were added to tie it to the road coming down from the main Aadheenam buildings. Drainage pipes were also installed underneath in strategic locations. The concrete contractor team did a great job and persevered despite the challenge of persistent rain on one day. For their good work, they were given a bonus and a case of noni juice, for which they were very thankful.

Within a few months, a second team will begin installing quartzite tile on top of the concrete.

The contractor team is close to two thirds done with building the eight-food-wide road around Iraivan Temple. They started at the front entrance with the apron connecting hillside steps to the granite staircase, and have since been working their way around both sides of the temple at once. Three concrete trucks came a couple days ago, four yesterday, two more tomorrow, and some more will come several days after that.

A contractor team has arrived to begin two to three weeks of work to create a concrete road around Iraivan Temple, replacing the temporary crushed asphalt we have there now. Some time after they are done, another team will cover the road with quartzite tile. Besides allowing vehicles to conveniently drive around, the road can serve as a circumambulation path for pilgrims doing sadhana, and occasional parades.

Today the main focus was to dig out the area that will connect the stairs coming up the hill to the temple granite staircase, where more technical precision is needed to ensure that the eventual quartzite tile layer will be at just the right height next to the first granite stair. They will pour this area on its own first, then the rest of the road later.

Auspiciously, today also happened to be the monthly Gurudeva Chitra pada puja.

Also, we continue to have a flock of nene geese moving about the property.

After many years of heavy use, the cabinets and drawers under our kitchen island counter were showing the signs of wear and tear, and termites had moved in. It was time to replace it. Longtime devotee and carpenter Kanda Alahan, from California, was kind enough to build a new set at home. He pre-assembled it, then disassembled and packed efficiently in a crate for shipping by sea, then reassembled it here. Our hired cook, Mani, took a couple days off while Kanda, along with multiple monks and our employee Doug, went about demolishing the old, cleaning the underside of the countertop for reuse and installing the new. It all went very smoothly and they were finished sooner than expected. Thank you Kanda!

Kanda Alahan from California is here to serve for a couple weeks in his expert woodworking capacities. His main task will be to install replacement kitchen island cabinetry in about a week that he had crafted back home. Before then, he and Kumarnathaswami are creating a new workbench for the tented area adjacent to the main woodshop. They’re making use of three glulam beams that we had left over from another project. They planed and sanded to make sure the beams are the exact same dimensions, then glued them together to form the wide workbench. Finally, a simple finish coat was applied.