Donaldson Family Homestead: July 2009

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Argentina Homestead Update

There is lots going on on the Donaldson Family Homestead these days.

I forgot to mention a couple of posts ago that Dane sold all of our honey harvest on a trip to town one day. Everyone he mentioned that he had honey to, asked him to sell them as much as he could. So the honey went, and people are still asking for more. That was a while ago, and we just got a text message the other day, asking if we had any honey for sale from a business in town.

After Dane's successful sale, he set about buying several more colonies. We now have 13 thriving colonies, which, Lord willing, would be a start to producing a nice middle class income here.

Dane and Elijah have spent considerable time caring for and feeding the new bees. Needless to say, the bees have been busy, and despite the winter temperatures, Dane is expecting to start harvesting honey in September.

Here is a picture of several new bee boxes that Dane has painted for the new colonies.

Here is Elijah with a bee smoker as he and Dane were on their way from one group of hives to another.

After Dane's tractor accident, he had some repairs to make on it. Within a couple of days of getting the tractor going again, it blew a head gasket, so he had to take it apart and replace it. He also had the head machined and a valve job done on it.

Dane finished the second story floor this past week and moved the children's beds upstairs. We now have a lot more room upstairs and down. 880 square feet has never felt so roomy! I would have added pictures of the upstairs, but our computer is acting up and we can't download right now - hopefully we can include some next time.

Dane has also been cleaning up the farm and getting it ready to sell. We believe that we have a buyer, a good friend and brother, so we couldn't be more thankful.

The children and I have taken some time off from our schoolwork in order to get ready for our upcoming move. When we get a few more things packed up, we will hit the books again for a few more weeks and then take a break again in October, when we plan to fly back to the U.S.

To continue, the Lord has blessed us with a regular supply of rain these days, and we have had cooler temperatures too.

Diapers drying over the stove

Little John enjoying the buntings and blankets that Meme made

Elijah had five stitches put into his lip at the hospital in town after his sister accidently catapulted a log into his face. In addition to the lip injury, he had several cuts in his mouth, bruised gums, a scraped cheek, and a black eye. As is his nature though, he was more concerned about his sister feeling badly than he was about his injuries. Praise the Lord, he is healing nicely.

Elisabeth, John, and I are traveling to Buenos Aires tomorrow evening, Lord willing, in order to apply for John's United States and Argentina passports on Monday. Dane will have to go soon after in order to finish the process, but hopefully we will have John's passports in the near future. Like Joseph's, we made his passport photos here at the house. He did very well as I took about 50 some pictures of him. We did get several that would make fine passport photos. The following photo won't work because of the wrinkles in the background, but it was a good picture of our newest little guy, so I thought I would share it. Who do you think he looks like? Maybe it's the hair, but I think he looks a little like his grandfather :).

The children never cease to find interesting things around the farm.

In this picture, Abby caught a bird that had gotten trapped in our shade cloth covered garden.

Abby found this strange flower growing on a vine, and Elijah climbed a tree to pick it for her.

And Elisabeth found this butterfly. It looks very much like a monarch. I guess that would be a question for our neighbors over at the Chacra Mariposa (Butterfly Farm).

Jessica

4,800 miles as the crow flies

Our current project is trying to figure out how the get from here to there:

Here is a picture of where the farm is in Kentucky. (you should be able to click on these pictures to see them bigger)

Here is a picture of the local towns around the farm.

Here is the outline of the farm. It is mostly forested.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Kentucky scenes

Well, we are moving ahead trying to prepare for the big move.
We have some more pictures from the homestead in Kentucky and we thought we would share them:

Here is the entrance to the farm looking from the county road.

From the front 'yard' looking at the pond. The pond is 15 feet deep.

This is the Allen family cemetary near the entrance to the farm. The farm is on Allen road.

One of the chicken coops. The chicken house is pretty fancy!

Here is the garden, MMMM veggies.

This is the inside of the phone booth. There is no phone inside the house.

Berries ready for auction. We are so excited about the berry farming!

Here is the entrance to the farm looking from the 2nd story deck of the house.

On the left is the chrysanthymums plot, then the grapes (table and wine grapes), then berries (blackberries and raspberries). The strawberries have been planted in another location this year, they rotate the strawberries.

More Berries!

More Grapes! They are 3 years old this year so there should start to be some fruit soon.

Inside the barn.

From the deck, the furnace house and pasture.

Here is the living area as seen from the kitchen.

A view of the upstairs. We don't really have a good idea about how things are laid out but with all the room, we hope that we can be very hospitable.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Donaldsons In Kentucky!

Well, we have some big news! The Donaldsons in Argentina are soon to be, Lord willing, the Donaldsons in Kentucky!

The Lord has opened the door for us to move and take over an Amish farm in Kentucky, and we couldn't be more excited and humbled to have this opportunity. We are making preparations and hope to be in the U.S. by the end of October.

Here are a few pictures of the farm.