Though the clouds hung heavily all day, and thunder rumbled in the distance the whole time I was out there, all that happened was a short, gentle shower. Hopefully I'll be painting under less threatening skies tomorrow! Slowly, slowly we're recovering the Stupa Park from yet another state of disrepair. The Stupas themselves are into the final phases of painting, but the work on the grounds has just gotten started. The grass is cut though, and many of the weeds now pulled, so it's worth coming out to see!  

July 9th...Weekend Round-up...

Friday I spent the afternoon addressing a problem with our offering box by the Enlightenment Stupa. Every now and then someone would come along an pop the lid off of it to steal the contents (not very good karma, but they probably don't know anything about that). We collect the offerings from there several times a week, but sometimes it happens anyway. The end result is our locking mechanism broke (from being jammed one too many times). Here are the tools I assembled for the job. A metal strip (pretty strong), a padlock, and our handy grinder! Here are some shots of the functional concept...

So here's a quick overview of the current solution. We'll see if it is effective. A metal strip was cut and bent to hold down the lid of the box, with a hole over the area where the previous lock had been. A bolt runs down through a hole in the strip to another metal piece inside the box, held on by a nut that can only be accessed once the strip is pulled up (prevents the strip from being pried up).

The metal strip goes down through the box, through a slit in the bottom, where there's a padlock, preventing anyone from being able to pull up on it or pop the top of the box up. At least not without a lot of effort... 

Here's the lock, under the box. It's a little more complex than the standard locking device, but much more sturdy. So we'll see how it goes! 

I took this shot of some of our temple cats because I couldn't resist. We have an ever growing population of them at the temple (recent additions seem to be house cats abandoned by their owners on our property---they know we won't kill them).  

Saturday our plan was to spend the morning hours on the Enlightenment Stupa finishing up, and then head to the Stupa Park. Yes, it is me that keeps making these plans...I admit it... 

Here Lisa uses the last of our fancy paint (potassium silicate) to cover all the repairs we'd done, and any areas that looked dull. 

After placing new desiccant, drilling holes in our new plexi, we finally caulked the gau of the Enlightenment Stupa! We placed the brocade front Mom sewed (thanks Mom!) which helped reduce the abundance of red in there, and on Friday evening, we polished the statue. So finally the Guru is in a clean, secure place (we hope....we've gone to a lot of trouble to try and keep that chamber free of excess moisture!) 

Well...we never made it out to the Stupa Park on Saturday. As is the pattern, it took much longer to accomplish what we set out to do than we thought (okay, okay, it is usually me that presents the unrealistically optimistic estimate). We did, however, finally get the Enlightenment Stupa 99% done. A few paint drips to touch up, but that's it! So, we're down to our two big jobs...Migyur Dorje and the Stupa Park! 

Today, Sunday, we finally made it back out to the Stupa Park. This is what we saw. Steve had taken the weed whacker around two of the small Stupas, but the others were completely overgrown. As you may know if you've been following the blog, we had a ton of rain a few weeks back, and the foliage loved it. Unfortunately, the weeds got completely out of control.

Our plan had been to fit the new plexi for the gau here, and measure for a brocade to go inside. But we forgot an extension cord (we hauled the generator out...oh well). So we fell back to plan B (we always have multileveled plans, as things always come up!). We scraped areas of paint failure and sanded. But as it came time to paint, I couldn't stand it anymore and I started weeding...I'll see what the consequences are tomorrow. There are chiggers out here, and poison ivy, but hopefully as we get this jungle cleared some of that will be less aggressive. We'll see how well this new fangled bug repellent Lisa picked up works!

Lisa spent the day priming and painting. You can see we were back to our soaked rags on our heads...the open exposure and slate of the Stupa Park make it very hot, much warmer than other areas. The day had it's cool breezes every now and then, but for the most part, we had to pace ourselves and sip gaterade to keep going... 

At the end of the day, we'd gotten a coat of primer and gold on the upper part of the Long Life Stupa and 4 of the small Stupas. Amy remained when we left to continue the weeding!

It doesn't take a Stupa chick to figure out that we won't finish by the time Lisa goes on retreat, and I go a few days after she does...alas. We're now just working hard to get as much done as we can.

Our Root Teacher here at KPC is coming! She hasn't seen the Stupas since last April...and if you check the archived pages of this blog you'll see it's been one heck of a year! For now, it's a matter of giving it all we've got until time runs out. Of course, if you want to come on out and pitch in don't hesitate! Even 20 minutes can make a difference out here! Don't worry though, we welcome visitors anytime, whether you want to work, or just walk around them. They are here for you, so come on out and see them for yourself!

July 5th...Recovering from technical difficulties...

It's been a while since I've been able to post, struggling between working (for a living), working on the Stupas, and technical trouble at home (internet connection having issues). I'm starting with this image, from last Friday, when Norbu, Lisa and I had dinner for the last time in a long time. Norbu's headed to New York, to visit family and then to attend the 1 month retreat at Palyul Ling. From there he'll be headed to Arizona to work at Dakini Valley. It was his idea to have the dinner, and somehow he got wrangled into doing the cooking too! : ) He was, as always, a great sport. We'll miss him here for sure, but wish him great success in his endeavors!

Yesterday was another day of challenges. Lisa and I each crawled out of our beds early to try and get as much done on the holiday as possible (holiday to us means we can work!). She brought the gatorade, and I brought the Starbucks, and we met semi-conscious by the shed. We spent an hour loading materials and water into the truck (our focus for the day was the Stupa Park, hence, the generator, power washer, and a 50 gallon barrel of water were needed, plus the paint, scrapers, sanders, etc...). The road out to the park is really horrible, a heart stopping journey every time. So when we finally made it out there and discovered (gasp!) we'd forgotten an essential item, a serious choice had to be made.

Here Lisa stares at one of our bags of supplies after we'd torn them all apart several times in utter disbelief...we'd forgotten the insect repellent. We've been out here unprepared before, and suffered for weeks with the agonizing bites from the insects out there. Lisa says they're chiggers, from what she researched (it was so bad we had to find out what the cause of our torment was). Whatever they are, no sane person wants to endure them again. But here we were, on site, ready to go, and undefended. In the end we decided to press on and do what we'd come out to do, bugs or no bugs...

We started the day (after we recovered our resolve...the "no see-ums" here are vicious to the unprotected!) by applying some bondo as filler to the surfaces of the gaus of the small Stupas where they had been damaged by the removal of the old reliefs. Our thin set is difficult to work with in repairs that are more than cracks, and we've found it difficult to apply a thin layer of concretenous material to a large surface and have it bond. We had folks suggest bondo, and saw evidence of it's use under the reliefs, so we decided to give it a try.  

Alas...our beloved Stupa Park does show signs of it's remote location. Weeds are having their way around our little Stupas! The flooding rains made access to the park dangerous (in fact, we said a lot of prayers on the way in yesterday!), and fueled the growth of the weeds besides. Now, we have a whole new project to take on! Of course, if you're out this way you can feel free to pull some out! 

One of the things we needed to do was get the bondo off a few of the small Stupas that had been left when we removed the old reliefs. Many of the reliefs took the bondo off with them, leaving some uneven surfaces. We used bondo to fill those in...and we used our ever handy grinder to gently grind down the old bondo... 

In fairness to my comrades, I have to occassionally post a photo of myself.  

You can see here our system for securing the reliefs while the epoxy sets. We used a sponge on the relief, a webbing strap around the bumpa, and a bungie cord over the top of the bumpa (as the webbbing kept creeping down as we tightened due to the slope of the bumpa). It may not be pretty...but it works... 

Lisa and I had expected we'd be toughing the day out alone (well...us and the chiggers), but as seems to happen often with this kind of thing...help arrived when we least expected it! Ashby joined us first.... 

Tiffany had come out just to spend some time at the Stupa Park, as was thrilled to be able to help paint! 

Much to our amazement, the crew kept growing! Steve came out when he heard we needed weeds pulled! Even in 90+ degrees with massive humidity! Of course, as a dude, he had a little more ventilation than the rest of us.... 

So, it may not look like an improvement (I know, I know...) but it is a phase of preparation completed. We've used the bondo to smooth out the gauges left by the removal of the old reliefs (which had been secured with bondo). Next time out we'll file and sand this area down, and then place the last two reliefs! The yellow is primer over the areas that were scraped and sanded. The paint here in the Stupa Park was the fussiest of all we worked with, and it didn't adhere uniformly. We're giving it another go! If it fails in large areas this time, we'll be removing it next year and switching to the Modern Masters Pharaoh's Gold, which we've had success with out at Migyur Dorje. 

We finished up yesterday with a quick check on Migyur Dorje. I hadn't seen the relief since Lisa worked on it this weekend. You can't tell too well in the photo, but she's added a lot of shading. We'll be getting back together on Friday evening, hopefully weather will be on our side! Could be perfect for working on the gau of the Enlightenment Stupa...low humidity. For now, I am working tomorrow so will end this here. It is our sincere hope that you will come to consider the Stupas your companions, feeling free to visit them here online or in person in Poolesville. They belong to everyone, their blessings uncountable. They are always here for you!